Mark and Peter off to race the Total 24 hours of Spa at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

[ML Peter Ludwig]

Mark Patterson and I have some real exciting times ahead, tonight we depart for the Total 24 hours of Spa at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps near Liège, Belgium. The attached photos are of our team and race car for the upcoming TOTAL 24 hours of Spa starting July 25th, 2009 @ 16:00 CET.

Car:
Ferrari GT3 430

Team:
Rossacorsa – Italy / CR Scuderia - Britain
Team Manager - Silvio Campigli/ Maurizio Baldi

4 Drivers:
Michael Cullin – Ireland
Paddy Shovlin - Ireland
Mark Patterson – USA
Peter Ludwig - USA




With over 200 drivers competing only 4 are Americans. Mark and I (Ferrari GT3 430), Bryce Miller (Porsche GT3 RSR), Patrick Long (Porsche GT3 RSR), we hope to do the USA proud.

The Total 24 Hours of Spa is scheduled from 4 pm CET (10 am ET) on Saturday, July 25, to 4 pm CET (10 am ET) on Sunday, July 26, on the 7.004-km (4.35-mile) Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps near Liège, Belgium. Live streaming will be available at http://gt1live.tv and timing/scoring at http://www.mstworld.com/timing/livetiming.htm?series=gt.'

Here are also a few videos I found on YouTube that will give you a feel for car and the experience we’re about to have next weekend.

[dalyduo]

I'm appropriately jealous... Hate you both!

What a great experience in an amazing car. And what could possibly go wrong with Irish co-drivers!

Give 'em Hell!

PS... Couldn't get the embeded Utube links to work?

[Slowhands]

All I can say is ........ WOW.

[WatertownNewbie]

Good luck, Peter! What a great track to be driving on too. Wow is right. Jealousy and envy are too understated in this case. There must be another word that captures the wish that I am feeling.

[GregS]

Originally Posted by Slowhands

All I can say is ........ WOW.

I just watched the first video. All I can say is ultra sick.

Are any of these fine gentlemen former skippy drivers?

Greg

[LimeRockRacer]

Originally Posted by GregS

I just watched the first video. All I can say is ultra sick.

Are any of these fine gentlemen former skippy drivers?

Greg

Yes, both were. Mark actually owned part of the company at one point. Mark and Peter both very accomplished in the series.

[LimeRockRacer]

Guys...Congrats, good luck . I know you will do us proud!

BTW, bring back a podium and a trophy for your shelf and memoirs...Shirt size Men's Large for me will be fine!

[ML Peter Ludwig]

I arrived in Brussels today about the same time as Mark and his wife Elena so we car-pooled together to the circuit. It’s about 1.3 Hours drive through some beautiful country side. Approaching Spa and the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps the landscaping was tremendous with lots of pine trees and elevation changes, not to mention everything green! The green comes from all the rain they get around here, some of which we hope not to see but we will most likely not be so lucky. Today we took scooters around the track and I can tell you photos and videos simply do not illustrate the serious elevation changes and blind corners here. I’ve attached some pictures which show the beauty of this track but not necessarily the beast.fficeffice" />

Today was all about FIA scrutiny of our gear and credentials, these guys document everything right down to your socks and underwear if you can believe that! Once thru this challenge it was all about getting use to the cars controls, seating positions and other fundamentals which we need to be aware of for our race.

Not much to say right now but WE MADE IT and we’re really excited!! Hope you enjoy the pictures. Tommorow we are on track for day and night sessions, including qualifying.

[ML Peter Ludwig]

More pics....

[ML Peter Ludwig]

A few more....

[dalyduo]

Greetings to you and Mark. Sensational stuff Peter. Great shots... We'd love to track your progress during the race so keep us posted if you can When do you meet the Irish boys? Love those roof flags.

[jp56]

Go get 'em guys and bring it home..

[GregS]

How much seat time do you have in these cars?

[Slowhands]

Amazing pictures, Peter. What a beautiful track. I would give anything just to do a scooter ride.

Thanks for posting the pics from your track tour--really gives a much better feel for the driver experience, even the beast part, than TV footage or telephoto shots zoomed in on the cars.

But where are the turn-in and apex cones??? Maybe they haven't gotten around to putting them up yet.

[ML Peter Ludwig]

Our first practice was wet, really wet. Paddy (one of our Irish Co-Drivers, the other one did not show up yet...) only did a few laps in the car since he knows the car and circuit well, we lost some valuable time with a ECU failure/change in the Ferrari. Mark did 5 laps I did about 7-8. The car is fairly easy to figure out and an honor to be in...

All things considered I think we did really great, The conditions went from wet to some what wet to full wet with rain, I love rain so I liked it a lot, my personal quick lap was enough to get us P3 in our class (of 10) and P17 overall (of 40), Mark was not far behind but with the track changing so fast it is impossible to compare our times as conditions could not be duplicated, each lap was a different story and reminded me of the stories heard from Michael A and John Mayes about Nurburg. In full rain we were less than 1 second off the P1 guy so that is encouraging for us. The pictures are of the car rolling on track for the first time.

Next practice in 45 minutes. This place is magical and we feel much better (less intimidated) getting the first stint under our belts. Sitting in the drivers meeting along side Patrick Long, J.V, Anthony Davis and Antony Garcia is enough on it's own to question what the hell we are doing here!!

[ML Peter Ludwig]

Practice 2 was not so pretty in the dry. Mark and I are new to the car so we had no reference but for sure we felt like it was not pulling hard at the top end. Paddy confirmed it during his drive and it seems (we hope) the ECU change may have caused us some problems. The original ECU was a GT3 ECU which exploits more of the cars power while the new ECU was a Challenge 430 box. Bottomline is we are about 30 km/H slow on top end and that is costing us BIG TIME in the dry. Currently we are nearly 6 seconds off of P1 on this 7 KM track but hope to get that resolved before Qualifying which is this afternoon and into tonight. Qualy consists of 3 sessions totaling 3 hours of track time, the best lap of the 3 sets the running order Saturday. Unlike in the US it will not matter who sets the fastest time, we can choose the starting driver and advise FIA tommorow morning.

[dlippert]

Look closely at the picture below. No longer can it be said tat Peter never hit an apex.

[LimeRockRacer]

Yeah, but he is facing in the wrong direction! Typical....

[cdh]

Originally Posted by ML Peter Ludwig

...Mark and I are new to the car...

What are you talking about? I know you have two of them in you garage at home, gonna have to do better than that Lugnutz

Originally Posted by dlippert

Look closely at the picture below. No longer can it be said that Peter never hit an apex.

but he has hit everything else on his way up the ladder

Originally Posted by LimeRockRacer

Yeah, but he is facing in the wrong direction! Typical....

But seriously folks - hope it goes well for your team, great guys. So Peter, you are racing at Spa, hallowed ground for sure, long track famous for sunshine at one end and downpours at the other, Eau Rouge, a track dripping with history....and we get a bunch of scooter-around shots...

Kidding man, in an alien car, intimidating track, lots of local talent (not referring to the babes, but I'm sure thay are also exceptional) more than daunting to say the least. And you have Patterson to keep in line! Have fun and best of luck. Who has the first stint?

Go get 'em

and remember, it could be worse

[ML Peter Ludwig]

Car is sorted!!! It turned out to be a wheel spin sensor that was defective limiting power to the car, fixed it but not till after the first qualifier (the only session that had 5 minutes of dry track), The grid was sorted on the first 2 laps before the heavens opened up again, we're buried on the grid but that’s OK in a 24 hour. The rain was even harder in the following 2 night sessions but our Irishmen dropped some really good laps to make us 3rd quickest again in the rain and top 10 overall. We will have better pace in the dry now too if we ever get some of that. Racing at night in the rain/fog and spray can not be put into words. The only one that comes to mind is scary. Tomorrow is our day off and than Saturday all hell breaks loose!!fficeffice" />

Good night

[Slowhands]

This is very very cool. Thanks for sharing, Peter.

[ML Peter Ludwig]

Last night the team was not happy with our motors perfromance so they swapped it out for a freshy, that puts us dead last on the grid. Frankly just a few spots back from where we were anyway. Some other last minute details but we are good to go, today just resting and would you believe first day with some BLUE skies..... (patches anyway)

Here are some pictures , one with the Lamborghini Challenge series, man that car looks cool on track, makes me want to buy another one

Have a great weekend!!

[cdh]

Race is now streaming, just started

http://gt1live.tv/

May be few US drivers but a Vette is in P1 one hour in, that is cool

[cdh]

Lugnutz posting some excellent lap times in very wet conditions, 4 hours in

Masers and Vettes duking it out for P1-4

[cdh]

Our gang finished, moved up some spots, according to Mark's race reports it was by far the most difficult race he has ever run. Extreme darkness, wet, dewy, slippery, foggy, tough tough tough...congrats you guys

[jordan]

Here are a few more pictures: http://www.motorsport.com/photos/sel...udwig&S=FIA-GT

And one from the FIA GT website:


-Jordan

[Slowhands]

Originally Posted by cdh

Lugnutz posting some excellent lap times in very wet conditions, 4 hours in

Yes he did. Very impressive.

Originally Posted by cdh

Our gang finished, moved up some spots, according to Mark's race reports it was by far the most difficult race he has ever run. Extreme darkness, wet, dewy, slippery, foggy, tough tough tough...congrats you guys

The view from the in-cars showed how tough it was. Wow. Nothing but complete respect for those guys. Awesome job!!

[dalyduo]

And the Motorsport link that Jordan shared with us are pictures Peter took. The close shot of the car going through a right turn apex with blurry houses in the background is spectacular. Thanks Jordan and bravo Peter.

Originally Posted by jordan

Here are a few more pictures: http://www.motorsport.com/photos/sel...udwig&S=FIA-GT

And one from the FIA GT website:


-Jordan

[PT Cruiser]

Hats off to Mark and Peter for not only having the guts to run a VERY daunting event, but for getting through the entire 24 hours in one piece. Sounds like quite the adventure!!

If either of you guys have time for a blow-by-blow account of the race, there are plenty of folks here who would enjoy hearing the story.

[cdh]

Originally Posted by PT Cruiser

If either of you guys have time for a blow-by-blow account of the race, there are plenty of folks here who would enjoy hearing the story.

Check out "Mark's Take" on Michael Shank Racing site. His race reports are great....Spa part one, the remaining installments will be posted soon

[ML Peter Ludwig]

Hey to you all!!!
Thank you for all the support and nice comments, I am sorry for not giving more feedback but once the race started it turned crazy, carzy, carzy. It took all the energy and mental strenght to get thru this event but I would not have changed a thing, the team, the co-drivers, competitors and fans were all wonderful.

I am still recovering from no sleep and dehydration so give me another day or two to get thought on paper, lots of pictures too. My wife Lauren is here with with and she needs to look after me like I'm some handicap person right now.... The story went on yesterday on he way back to Brussels with Mark when he put gas in a diesel rental car, OMG was that something for a movie, dead tired up for over 37 hours with our rental on a flat bed and our wives on our laps in the cab of the trunk with some guy that only speaks French.... we laughed until we cried!!!

Bottomline is we made it to the end of the 24hrs of Spa, had several problems along the way but we made it unlike almost 50% of the field. In the rain we were fast, really fast but the car simply did not have the pace in the dry.

More to follow and we'll get Marks excellent blogs up here too... Talk soon (Here are a few more for now)

[LimeRockRacer]

Nice Job guys. Glad to hear you all had a blast and finished! can't wait to get the blog and inside scoop.

Congrats!

[cdh]

Originally Posted by ML Peter Ludwig

...something for a movie, dead tired up for over 37 hours with our rental on a flat bed and our wives on our laps in the cab of the trunk with some guy that only speaks French.... we laughed until we cried!!!

priceless, great pic of you, Mark and Elena in the cab...too funny, congrats again

[cdh]

Originally Posted by cdh

Check out "Mark's Take" on Michael Shank Racing site. His race reports are great....Spa part one

"Mark's Take" on Spa 24 Hours Part 2

[ML Peter Ludwig]

As written by my wonderful teammate and friend Mark Patterson

Chapter 1
Peter Ludwig and I flew to Brussels to join Irish drivers Michael Cullen and Paddy Shovlin to compete in the 10th running of the GT 24 Hour Race at Spa in a Ferrari 430 in which Michael has won several European Ferrari Challenge titles, disputed only by Paddy who believes he won those titles.

Elena and Lauren came along partly to support addicted husbands and partly based on their love for racing - the parts, indisputably, are not equally weighted. We checked into the famous Hostellerie le Roannay, a third generation family hotel where they've redefined rude and customer service. The rooms in this tiny time bubble of a village (Francorchamps) are top flight for pre-World War II visitors, capitalizing on the fact that no hotel is closer to the track and that's the spot the Ferrari team for some reason stays during F1 races. Inexplicable, just like the weather here.

I've had the chance to experience some amazing race tracks around the world (existing F1 tracks like Indianapolis, Montreal and Shanghai, plus ex-F1 tracks like Watkins Glen and Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez), but if a Mecca of race tracks exists, it is here in the dark tall green forests of Spa. Aspiring track designers should be forced to make many mandatory laps here at Spa before matriculating in their science. This design sets limits for elevation change and high speed blind faith turns, coupled with an ever changing set of weather conditions that can produce the single most challenging race track in the world. Weathermen in Belgium produce forecasts at least as reliable as Nancy Reagan's palm reader. Comforting, but totally useless.

Thursday had 5 stints for practice and qualifying and we managed to put our Ferrari 430, devoid of electrical issues, on the track at around 10:30 pm, where the rules state each driver must put in a mandatory timed lap in the pitch dark. Our is an Italian team, so it takes a day or so to adjust to the random manner in which chaos evolves, almost always, into some form of order. We have Massimo, Ivano, Andrea, Silvio, Mauricio and similar vowel laden pals in charge of our car and they can turn a spanner like nobody's business. Unbelievable work ethic, but no sense of German order and authority at all. Who are we, though, to argue with Ivano, who was Michael Schumacher's head mechanic for 3 years during his F1 reign?

They installed a new ECU three times to try to get the gears to change properly and to allow full throttle to produce the desired effect instead of a pit speed limiter effect at each gear change. Then it rained. Then it was dry. Then it poured. At the end of the only practice day, Peter Ludwig and I had about 3 dry laps and about 4 wet laps each, while Paddy and Michael seemed to know this track like the back of their hands. Embarrassing, but there was another 20 minute warm-up session on Saturday morning that would give Peter and me a small foretaste of what lay ahead. And then Italy decided to change the engine to improve our chances of completing all 24 hours. FIA rules dictate both a pit lane start plus a drive through penalty on the world's longest pit lane - 40 seconds at 60 km/h and our pit lane limiter doesn't work, so incurring another drive through penalty is about a 50-50 proposition.

SkyTV's weather forecast for Europe and Belgium had a wonderful westward moving high pressure zone to blow through all this impossibly repetitive rain we'd experienced, yielding a 10% chance of rain on Saturday and none on Sunday. It started raining about an hour after we got here at 8:30 a.m. and rained 4 more times before the race started at 2 pm. We even got a downpour in the middle of the parade lap with 4 drivers stacked in the back seat of a long line of convertibles, trying to wave to an adoring and cheering crowd of race fanatics.

Michael Cullen, who had missed almost all the mandatory practice sessions, but having been pardoned by the FIA stewards due to the unforeseen death of his late uncle Joe Paris (Cullen even showed up to apologize formally to the stewards in a black suit, white shirt and black tie, almost in tears after the Irish wake), was given the honor of starting the race by Paddy, who had won the coin toss. With Shovlin, there's no such thing as a free lunch, so this "gift" will cost Cullen dearly in due course. Forced to meander through pit lane, he soon had the track to himself and was turning safe laps in the dry, but our set up, a compromise for wet and dry conditions, meant we weren't fastest in the G3 group. Our strategy was to start each driver off with a 1 hour stint and then shift to 2 hours each from 8 pm onwards, finishing the race with a set of 1 hour drives.

No problem with Cullen, no problem with Shovlin and I even settled down with some consistent laps nearly on top of Michael and Paddy's, when a pace car full course yellow was called after an Eau Rogue full bore crash into the high camel back wall destroyed a top competitor. I'd done only about 35 minutes (felt like 15) and was called into the "box" by Andrea for fuel, so ended up aiming at a stint and a half. After the green, back to work on a fantastic car, barreling through Pouhan's downhill double apex like my life and nerves depended on it, trying to be as brave as possible through Blanchemont (sp?) and using our unbelievable brakes to hold off better cars into Le Source and Rivage. Quite an experience. After a while the heavens opened as I was coming past the pit wall and was able to control the car long enough to head down to Eau Rogue where somehow just 200 yards further away it wasn't raining at all. The pit box bellowed on the radios for me to "Box,Box, Box! It isa raineeeng very ahard nowa!". I had to tell them we'd stay out another lap to see if it was raining elsewhere on the track. By Pouhan the skies opened wide and I babied it back like a grandmother all the way to Blanchemont where even at a lousy 100 kpm in 3rd gear the car began to slide wildly out of control on slick tires, so I wrestled it back into some semblance of forwards and peered through the windshield wipers to spot 3 cars tangled together, one heavily into the wall, at the last chicane before the pits.

I dived into the pits, Peter Ludwig took the wheel while we changed to rain tires and refueled, then he proceeded to put in a flawless drive of 3-5 seconds a lap quicker than any G3 car on the slower laps and 10 seconds quicker on his best laps. In fact, the group ahead of us, GT2, were all slower than Peter too. Our compromised set up, plus unbelievable Pirelli tires, made us start begging for rain till the checkered flag. We moved up 2 spots to P6 in class.

Cullen in for the first double stint, had forgotten that cardinal chore before leaping into the car, so by the time he came in for fuel he'd had to tie a knot in it, poor fellow. Half way through his second stint either the knot failed or he really had a power problem, but he pitted off schedule, allowing half of Italy to leap into the rear of the car like a scampering group of meerkats diving down a hole. There were 17.5 hours to go around Lap 132 when Michael had to pit for an engine sensor problem and we ended up spending about 26 minutes in the garage, going down 9 more laps.

Driver change - Paddy out in the pitch dark Spa night putting in wonderful 2 minute 36 second laps, only a few seconds off our best dry daylight lap times. We were 10th in class out of 11 and running P29 overall out of 40 cars. So far 7 cars had met the same fate as Joe Paris. It's nearing 11 pm and I need to go get togged up for a mid-night double-header, so will sign off for now while Peter Ludwig and Michael Cullen doze quietly in the little 3 bed camper down behind the catering tents.

Thanks to Roger Schoels and his son-in-law Nico, who live in Belgium, for coming to support us for the first 7 hours of this race. Several of Peter Ludwig's family and friends also came and waved the flag to raise our spirits.

Chapter 2
Well now it's nearing 3 a.m. and I drove almost a full stint and a half starting somewhere after midnight. This moonless, lightless, pitch dark race track plays with your head, heart and soul in broad daylight in violently varied conditions that lie in ambush and then at night double the odds of breaking your spirit even when it doesn't rain. Fog and mist settle heavily on small selected patches of this problematic track, so your lights cast instant and impenetrable white walls before you like the sheet they held across Massa's body as they carried him to the helicopter today. After Le Source's beautifully cambered 2nd gear turn where professional photographers hang across the chest high hairpin wall and revel in their ability to set off H-bomb intensity flashes right in your line of vision, you power down like a demon looking for 3rd gear and WHACK! you have to back off, even brake to find the cement wall on your right like a blind man with his long white tap-tap-tapping stick, or some shadow of the red and white curbing that you could have sworn was under that wall of fog on the left side somewhere. Soon I figured out it was better to let another car outbreak me into Le Source and then follow him into the wall of white, letting him illuminate the area and then burst past him at full throttle as he fumbled around for 2 seconds finding the clear air leading downhill to Eau Rogue. Irritated the hell out of the fast GT1 cars to have a cheeky little Ferrari screaming past them on the left.

Hoping my memory was faulty, I had some recollection of Shovlin packing in 2:36s and 2:38s an hour earlier in this heart of African darkness and I seemed to be snailing around in the 2:42s through 2:47s. Beyond the shifting mist blankets that forced lots of unscheduled and unpleasant slow-downs, the only other two reasons on which I could blame this embarrassing differentiation, other than age and inability, was a dewy silky surface coating most of the corners and a near absence of brakes. The dew was deceptive, for unlike rain, you can't see it or judge it, as several cars found out once they'd skidded straight off into the armcos at unstoppable speeds. The other factor, though, especially in a Ferrari, was very disconcerting for someone of my advanced years. Ferrari's ABS breaking is unreal, comparable to someone reading you the Encyclopedia Britannica and then you actually remembering the entire 26 book edition. These brakes do all the work. You just have to leave your foot hovering somewhere in the general vicinity of the brake pedal and Ferrari has electronic detectors that figure out: (A) you're thinking of braking soon, (B) what the right brake pressure is for the speed you're going, (C) just applies and releases the exact amount of pressure and then applies and re-releases it about 2 million more times before turn-in (sometimes only 1.9 million times), and (D) emits a small amount of mist into the cockpit that let's the driver enter a momentary state of fancy, believing he actually applied precisely the right amount of braking.

Now this scientific explanation is what used to happen when dangerous corners approached us all in the early stints. Now in the dew and the fog and the night and the dark, it may have been my imagination, but I found the brake pedal seemed to travel almost to the floor and sometimes even through it without much stopping effect. No emitted mists either. So the combination of a slick invisible layer of slime of the road surface and no brakes made for courageous but slow laps. I called this in to Silvio after some pretty harrowing moments: "Theesa eesa howa the brakesa worka ata theesa pointa ina the racea." He's from Tuscany. I lost a lot of confidence in his judgment at that moment. I was trying to make the point that this is exactly how badly they worked and all he did was confirm it and encouraged me to "Stay outa, OKa?".

Fortunately a very long safety car all-yellow was called after some dimwit skidded across the dewy surface into the railing, but the repair job was interminable and after 15 or 20 of the laps (and a convenient refueling stop under yellow), my right leg began to enter a phase of intermittent cramps starting with the inside thigh, then the outside muscle connecting the knee to your heel, then my big toe. My Italian brakes and the device that used to apply pressure to them both appeared to be failing simultaneously. Again, I reported this dire problem to Silvio to see if we had a standby driver ready in case these cramps became intolerable. Of course, he encouraged me to "Staya outa pleasea". Before we went green, Pete Ludwig was ready in the pit box and I dived for cover, only to see him re-pit the very next lap, saying only an idiot would drive a race car with no brakes. That and we had a gear box oil leak that needed a repair, so we ended up going down another handful of laps.

It's almost 5 a.m. now and I've been stretched, thumbed, tweaked, massaged and brutalized by the chief physio from Cullen's Dublin hospital, Kathy Mussolini, an otherwise charming and attractive mother of three. Despite the stretch rack and various other torture devices she deployed with twist of evil intent, the cramps seem to prefer to stay, so she sent me on an Australian "walkabout" like in that movie about the Creamy. Solved the problem in no time.

Peter's out of the car and relieved to be on terra firma after a harrowing and frightening two stints in these diabolical conditions. Mick is in doing his second double stint, or at least the first part of it. More later if our prancing horse wishes to prance some more. Only 11 hours to go and I haven't snoozed a bit since I can't recall when.

Chapter 3
By the time the 4 pm checkered arrived on Sunday only 21 of the original 39 entrants were still roaring loudly and proudly round Spa. We won the trophy, an imaginary one, for the most pit stops: thirty. Mathematically, that takes some doing, except for an Italian team, given most race cars last more than an hour on a tank of fuel. Most managed on 16 or 18 stops, but we may have set a record for Spa with 30, but we finished and that is the foremost goal of all endurance racing. The leader won by 14 laps as there were only 2 pace car full course yellows in 24 hours. Unheard of in American endurance racing. I'm not saying there were no incidents or violent crashes, but in these cultures, corner workers are expected to corner work both off and on the track while the race continues. You'll literally come barreling around some blind corner and find an oil spill, a car in the pebbles or up against the barrier and about 6 corner workers waving exciting to ensure you probably miss most of them. Really an insane risk both for those not yet involved in the crash as well as those still trying to figure out if their race might be able to continue for a while longer. Deaths were kept to an absolute minimum (except Joe Paris - more on that later) and a haggard and exhausted set of drivers and support crews gathered under the podium to celebrate all but the pit stop trophy winners.

I'm a little ahead of myself at the imaginary podium. From 5 a.m. when last an electronic pen hit digital paper, the sun was coming up to a promising day of no more rain and therefore no more advantage for us. We needed mechanical mortality to move up and managed to outlast half a dozen other strained compilations of metal and carbon fiber, moving slowly up the ranks from 30th to 21st. The indignity of P21 is that you're always listed on the second TV page, a click away from the default setting everyone watches in Europe.

Strangely, none of our four drivers had a big mishap throughout the race. Peter Ludwig was shouldered into the grass and gravel by a leading Vitaphone Masseratti, causing the splitter to break and in the daybreak hours with Michael driving, eventually the splitter did peel back and blocked the radiator intake, in time causing the engine to overheat - one of our 30 pit stops fixed that. We'd had a gear box oil leak that caused another unscheduled stop. Paddy, already with the fasted lap time of 2 minutes 30 point something, tried even harder through the double-apex triple-sphincter-tightening Pouhan curve, only to find himself producing a TV highlight about how to conduct the maximum amount of tank slapping and helmet contact with the roll bars without actually demolishing the car. I was bringing up the rear with low 2:33s and had no massive moments worth reporting. It was exciting during the last stint to the checkered to find large portions of a diffuser or undertray on fire and burning furiously on the outside rumble strips to Pouhan, a part of the track you'd ordinarily try to use.

It's hard to describe the combination of exhaustion and the natural/synthically assisted high you can somehow maintain during a race as long as these. Beforehand, during the planning discussions, everyone imagines getting 4+ good hours of sleep. We even had at our disposal a 3 bed caravan made by Matchbox for this purpose. I'm not sure if collectively the 4 drivers managed 4 hours of sleep. The toll for this insanity isn't light. Mick had a vomitorium issue and had to concede the back half of one of his stints, while my legs went into spasms and cramped ferociously despite Mrs. Mussolini's best efforts on the stretch rack. We had good catering, but not good common sense.

The good news was that we made it to the end with a crew up and ready at all hours having to deal with 50-70% more pit stops than non-Italian teams. These guys were absolutely exhausted, but could switch on to full energy mode in a nanosecond, executing chaotic ballet movements that allowed the car to leave the pits in minutes even when we thought we had some serious issues to deal with.

For the drivers, one of the attractive features is the heating of tires. This 40 second pit lane length with some corners and widths a real attention grabber, there's no doubt that without pre-heated tires there would be numerous pit lane accidents.

While we were all tired and drained, but goal number one had been accomplished whereas almost half the field had fallen before the merciless hands of Spa, retired and garage doors shut long before the checkered flew against a blue cloudless sky. It was a sad and cheery goodbye in languages resembling English and Italian, maybe Italish here and there, as we staggered back to our cars and the Hostellerie Ronnay for the last time. Not just the last time for this trip. Michael and Kathie asked Phil the transportation manager to drive them to Brussels, opting not to share Elena an my Hertz rental, a spacious Volvo with lots of luggage room. The Ludwig’s had changed plans and were heading back to stay at the Brussels airport Sheraton with us, so we gave them a ride in the Volvo diesel. Uneventful drive compared to the harrowing corners of Spa, but Elena insisted we pull over and refuel the car, grab a snack halfway to the Brussels airport on about the 3rd time I fell asleep at the wheel. So picky.

I happily announced the 50 litres of gas for which we'd have to pay 61 Euros and I noticed faint signs of facial shock on Lauren's normally smiling profile. Her reaction foretold a story of delay, frustration, expense and helplessness. The Volvo was indeed a diesel and the fuel I'd added was indeed petrol, so we pushed the car from the pumps and called Munsters, the local trucking company to siphon off the bad fuel mixture so we could refuel and drive to the airport in 20 minutes or so.

The truckie from Munsters showed up speaking only French and refused siphon off the fuel, loading up our baggage laden Volvo on his bright yellow falt-bed and towed us back to his garage, saying through a 15 year old with 14 words of English that they'd deal with everything tomorrow. Thank goodness Michael Cullen and physio Kathy (Mr. & Mrs. Cullen according to owner of Hostellerie Roannay - "oui, oui, no problem", winking at our protests to the contrary) didn't use us to get the Brussels flight back to Dublin.

At Munsters a roaring barbeque was underway after the Catholic Church's blessing on all the new trucks that day and our driver simply refused to drive us and our inebriated Volvo to the airport Sheraton until he'd supped with the loud Belgian crowd partying in his garage. Several hours and 400 Euros later we de-flat-bedded the Volvo, Peter and me pushing it into a parking spot next to the hotel and Hertz behaving like saints, took over the mess without a word of complaint. Peter and Lauren will book their own rental car next time.

On a final note, Michael's uncle didn't die and there wasn't a burial service, but the FIA is so finite in applying their compliance rules (they even check the drivers' socks), it makes you have to come up with silly extreme stories to overcome some of their deadline limits, even when you have logical and legitimate reasons for being a trifle late. He did, though, show up before the FIA officials on Thursday evening in a black suit and tie, accompanied by a very teary team manager (Silvio), looking very much like he'd just buried something. The truth?

[ML Peter Ludwig]

Variuos pictures from the internet but more coming once we have our own compiled.....

[ML Peter Ludwig]

A couple more..

[dalyduo]

Great stuff Peter. Thanks for sharing it with us...
And after all this... When will you ever again in your life get to attend a church barbeque with blessed trucks!