Shimmy Racing 12 hour Enduro race at Snett

[DuncanR]

Good luck old chap ! sorry wont be able to get along to this.

[giraffe]

Going to 9pm Gareth. Don't be shy (bring yer overalls)[/quote]

O i see like that is it , dont worry im not scared of geting dirty if needed

[billyboysm3]

Originally Posted by Funkster

Hi shim, I'll try and pop down, may even bring Cecil for a run out! I,m only 45 mins away so a shame not to make the effort.

Probably get there a little later as I,ll be loading our car During the day as we are on an end of season track day there on the Sunday

Matty

Matty see you there on Sunday - just got a last minute slot as someone pulled out.

Shimmy good luck, if I wasnt there sunday Id pop in

[Funkster]

Originally Posted by billyboysm3

Matty see you there on Sunday - just got a last minute slot as someone pulled out.

Shimmy good luck, if I wasnt there sunday Id pop in

Good stuff Billy, Come say Hi..... We are in garage 15 Dayglo Orange 328i Coupe.... Im the fat bald one

[billyboysm3]

Originally Posted by Funkster

Good stuff Billy, Come say Hi..... We are in garage 15 Dayglo Orange 328i Coupe.... Im the fat bald one

Will do.

Billy

[shimmy]

We made it thru testing and quali unscathed (except an alternator, gearbox and a rol of gaffer tape)

Shimmy Racing qualified P2 as Clive pointed out and team 2 (Pencukefarm yurts) a bit lower! But qualifying means nothing tbh.

Strategy sorted (for at least the first 10 minutes until all hell breaks loose) and in the morning Maxx starts at 9am followed by Ken, Clive and BlackiePaul at around 80-85 minute intervals.

Team 2 (Pencukefarm Yurts) has 3 drivers and a much less aggressive strategy including all stopping for tea and scones at 11am.


Not much time to post on here so listen in at @ShimmyRacing.............

[Bounce]

Good luck today Shim.

[shimmy]

Well what a day (or two)

I got over to Snett with Jimmy, my mate, on Friday at around 11am. We had a couple of cars out testing until 3pm, getting some data (Ron Denis styley) and making sure the drivers were at least familiar with the circuit.

We flushed out a dodgy gearbox (changed in the evening) and managed to choose tyres for the day. We have shaved Hankooks (2011 tyres) but were allowed to run Kumho 2012 championship tyres and generally they seems like the better around winter tyre.

Friday was cold, frikkin cold. Fog and most had come down by 1pm and all cars had to run front and rear lights like nighttime until end testing. Wind was howling and temps were round 4 degrees.

Qualifying was 4pm to 5.30. Each driver had to complete 3 laps minimum (only one full lap) so we sent out the fastest first to try to get best laptimes whist sun was up, and then we settled down to get all drivers qualified and sent out best driver again to run in some more quick laps.

Hardest part of the weekend was the 5 hours in the bar of the Breckland lodge with everybody talking bollox about the next day, but too much adrenaline!

Race Day

7.30 at track for a 9am to 9pm race. Sign on and briefings done the day before, mechanics up to 4am prepping cars so all we had to do was get first drivers name to race control for each car and get the car to the assembly area by 8.40am.

It is never that easy as chaos ensued in all the excitement but we got both cars there and ready for green flag lap and rolling start. Jimmy was managing ShimmyRacing team 2 (Pencukefarm Yurts) and me Team One with in theory the faster drivers with more experience. I'll talk from now on just about my race team one,

I had set up a strategy for the race. Driver order Maxx, Ken, Clive, Paul basically in order of experience. We had 720minutes (12 hours) but had to do 10 compulsory stops of 3 minutes so race time was 690 minutes. With two cars per team it seems to me there was a certainty that to win you would need to run all the 690 minutes on track and have the faster average lap times. Two cars meant there was less chance of lost time to mechanical breakdown unless you could not be back to the pits. Our cars could go about 90-100 minutes ith out refuel so we landed a 90 minute daytime stint and then review at dusk and start to use up the spare stops we had if they hadn't been used. We would try to use spare stops later under safety car and leave one to the last 20 minutes incase of any last minute issues.

I think the race was very interesting and hopefully next year there will be more cars but with the 13 teams entered and around 25 cars it was certainly not an empty grid and racing was close and exciting. (too close once or TWICE)

We were in the mark one mx5 class (9 team entries) and there was 3 car in the mx5 mark two class and two cars both mazdas.

The mark one race turned into Shimmy Racing v BSMotorsport. In the first half of the day it was neck and neck on the track although I'm pretty sure they had done one more pitstop. They had three very experienced drivers and we had one two experienced mx5 drivers, one lotus driver and one relatively new driver.

The first 6 hours went from mist and drizzle to sunshine and temps were ok. We held 2-4 overall behind just one mark one car (BS Motorsport). Our pace looked good and at worse we were half a lap behind, and sometimes we were neck and neck. At 7 hours at one point we were 0.38 second behind.

In the dusk, drizzle and dark Team One lost some more time on track as our average laptimes came down more than theirs effectively putting us within 3 minutes on track but also one pitstop behind.

thus we were effectively 5-6 minutes behind going into the last 2-3 hours. We had the benefit of a stop to call on if we needed it to repair or swaps cars where necessary whereas they were much more likely to have to stop 11 times with any on track issues. As it was BS Motorsport didn't have any issues.




It finished with us catching a bit back and finishing 4th overall and 2nd in class about 6minutes 50 seconds behind the mark one leader. Not bad after 12 hours, 690 minutes racing and 277 laps.

We picked up a second place in class, fourth overall. Clive set fastest mark one lap of the race, Maxx was just so consistent, Ken put in loads of time and so reliable, Paul as a newcomer was brilliant in the day time and was just consistently improving through the damp and wet and dark times.


Overall real fun, great team spirit. It is amazing how the drivers are so selfless, not caring about their own time on track, just wanting to win as a team. It made making decisions about who to put out when, so easy as there were no politics to play.

I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to race, less than £1000 per driver. Start saving now!

Thanks to ONeill for turning up to watch, I think he may want some of it, and I think it will suit his drivin style. Thanks to PinkPanther for words or encouragement.

[shimmy]

Talking from the team managers point of view it is a big learning curve as everybody is looking at you to adapt strategy as the race changes and to react to issues with car mechanical issues and safety cars to make the most of situations.

I had three main spur of the moment decisions to make in the 'Pit Perch'.

Decision 1 - was a safety car call, where we pitted as Maxx had done 78 minutes of his 90 minute stint, and tried to get Paul out before the safety car came round again. He was stopped 3m from the pit lights so had to wait and join behind the SC and row of cars so we didnt manage to save a pit stop 3minutes. In retrospect we could have risked a pit penaly and sent him out early (under 3 minutes) but at that time we didnt know when the safety car was coming in and also when they turn on the red lights to prevent cars leaving the pits. Nothing lost but nothing gained either with that one.

Decision 2 - we had an issue with Clive's car as we were about to send it out and I decided to send Ken back out for 30 minutes which did loose us 40secs on track as our pitstop went to 3m40. The car smelt of oil and then Matt noticed bolts missing on the exhaust and rather than risk loosing a car out on track which could loose us 3-5 minutes during recovery so we used up our spare pitstop instead.

Decision 3 - was a a successful pit stop in a safety's car period. By then I'd worked out were we could pit from which was within about 30-40 secs of the safety car going past. Maxx was too far away from the SC so I sent Maxx around first SC lap and he caught up the SC and then we pitted and got Paul out this time before it came around again. Paul then proceeded to catch up with the pack meaning we had pitted and not lost any track position.

I liked having a headset, it made me feel important.

Here is a link to the time sheets and hourly update sheets!

http://www.tsl-timing.com/brscc/2011/114532.pdf

In the endurance racing you really do make a difference, it's not just about the drivers, but also team manager and mechanics can make or break the day.

[shimmy]

Just a few iPhone pics.....