Yes, the No 67 Daniels Motorsport Civic Type R driven by myself, Jamie Ackers, Ben Jacques and David Nye won Class 3 in this weekend Britcar 24hr at Silverstone.
I'll try and do a fuller report in due course but here are a few pics. Click the image for a larger view.
The Winning Car
As you guys are into engines .. this is bog standard apart from Inlet and Exhaust tweaks.
This is car 68 which I shared with (amongst other) BTCC regular Fiona Leggate and I can say she is not just a pretty face, the girl can DRIVE!
The Driving Team (Me, Jamie Ackers, Ben Jacques & David Nye)
Some of the Support Team
This is what 12hrs driving and only 45mins sleep does to your eyes (taken when I got home after another hours driving).
I was driving the Civic (Car 68) that got hit by the Duke Marketing BMW. It was a massive impact as the BMW had brake failure braking for Vale (which he was likely approaching at 100mph+) and rather than slow to the 40mph require rammed into my rear quarter. The driver (Duke MD Peter Duke) immediately came over and apologised and after we'd been released from the medical centre he also came and apolgised to the team.
The BMW front end was written off and we didn't think our car could be repaired either but the team completely rebuilt (with hammers) the rear quarter and as the entire suspension had been snashed, replaced it (and the other side) with road suspension. We were out of action for 5 hours but with very strong pace from our driver lineup (Me, Dave Abbot, Mike Hartley and Fiona Leggate) and generally attrition we finished that car 4th in class.
Car 67 (the winning car) ran fairly faultlessly all through the race. I got side-swiped early on by a Marcos into Copse which affected the handling somewhat but not being serious enough to warrant any work we pressed on with it.
Incidentally, I only found out a few days before the race that i'd be driving both cars, the plan before I arrived was to do a full stint in 68 and half a stint in 67. This came about because of drivers dropping out at the last minute. The other half-stint driver for 67 also dropped out (the day before, sprained ankle) so I was told when I was "asked" when I arrive for quali if I could do a full stint in both cars which I said I thought I could.
Because of new regs this year it stated that a driver MUST take 120 mins beaks between driving stints which worked out that I had to do double runs (3hrs) in each car with 3hrs in between. It was very tough but with the stoppage for fog it did mean that one 3hr stint was broken up.
As ever with endurance events there are always dramas and with 30 mins to go and only a few laps lead on the 2nd placed car our driver, Ben Jacques lost 3rd and 4th gears, having managed to find 5th he just left it there and did the last 30 mins in 5th gear. Thankfully our controllers didn't tell the rest of us on the pitwall, it was nerve racking enough as is.
Malcolm
