A little something for Endurance racing fans

The '07 Bol d'or wound up at the weekend with much ado throughout the race. Mucho incidents apparently, with both BMW's expiring along with the hub centre steered Suzuki, the Macdonalds sponsored MV and the Duke, leaving it the top privateer team GMT 94 to take the race win after 14 years of trying.

Team Alf's endurance Racing had to retire early Saturday night due to ongoing niggly mechanical problems, If there was an award for effort and meticulous preparation the Sussex based squad deserve all the plaudits. you can view pix here from John 'more than two cylinders is just plain greedy' Brookes.

I was fortunate enough to have been involved in the April Le Mans race whith Team Alfs. Unfortunately they didn't fare much better there, but I did scribble a race report which still hasn't seen the light of day yet so though not of the moment you can read it now, hopefully it will paint a picture of what I think is the hardest motorcycle road racing discipline there is.

If you want to learn more about endurance racing, you might as well get it from the horse's mouth. link to the Race Corporation here. Official site of the Eurosport race commentator.

Will endeavour to post up chapter 7 of the road trip soon, but I thought all you long suffering readers might want a break before you get too bored so here's something else to get your teeth into

In the meantime read on messiuers et madames (be warned it's a bit of a long one)

View from the greenhouse (revisited)
One more account to add to the others I’ve written about this event.

Its (if I was honest) a parochial tale which was not my intention but none the less I feel the need to relay it as it came out from my head to my trembling fingers or is that tremens fingers? Hard to tell at the time

A tale of cacophonous motorized harmonies. Strange and oddly hued vapors, top speed and light smears. Pallid faces in the dead of night. Toil, blood, sweat, swearing, fatigue and insomnia.

For this is a tale of three days on the Red Eye Express. Sweeping us along to its destination. The 2007 24 hour endurance race held at the circuit De Bugatti, Le Mans France. A name synonymous for 24 hour events of both two and four wheeled varieties. An international brand and a most prestigious event. One which all who have been at the sharp end of this form of motorcycle racing hold their head up high and describe the event with a little awe and lashings of pride.

I was proud to be part of this years event, kindly asked by Team Alf’s Endurance, (a local team to me from Worthing West Sussex) if I could help them out again this year.
My immediate response was count me in, though in previous years like my worst hang over I usually vow never again. But it’s the excitement, the living on the high side, the buzz, Motorcycle racing, I felt fortunate to be invited along to the party

Alf’s who in previous years had mustered names such as John McGuinness, Chris Burns, the late great Gus Scott and Ronnie Smith, this year had managed to secure the services of X men look-alike and all round fantastic geezer who is tipped to topple John McGuinness from his all time great status (amongst many other notables throughout TT history)at The Island this year. Bring it on for Mr. Guy Martin.

Accompanying him were two rising stars in the Superstox and Supersport arenas Adam Jenkinson and Craig Fitzpatrick. The mount was an ‘07 ZX-10R which was equipped for Super Production racing, (check out the pix), it’s a bloody gorgeous thing kicking out 170hp at the wheel and weighing in at about 165 kilos. A serious contender in the class and a threat to any betting.
That’s the beauty of this racing. Not only have you got to be fast but you have to remain fast for hours and hours and hours, round and round and round…. It gives all teams a fair crack of the whip.

But, I’m ahead of myself we hadn’t even started yet. We had to get there first. Five of us in a mobile home equipped with some excellent loudspeakers amongst it’s mod cons courtesy of Chris ‘frosty bollox’ Frost. He had bought the previous year’s bike from Alf and was checking out this year’s race from the Team involvement angle.

Over the water and then Approx 200 miles south of Dieppe

Naturally we were all excited and revved up on the ferry meeting up with a contingent of bikers corralled together by previous 24 hour rider ‘Mickman’ who works at the Alf’s Kawasaki franchise. He had volunteered to organize a road trip down to the circuit with a posse of customers to enjoy the Le Mans experience. Loads of new 10‘s a couple of ZX6‘s a Gixer, a brace of R1’s a Triumph Daytona with Mick and his wife on the ZZR1400, it made me all misty eyed and I wished I had polished up the venerable ‘9‘ and was accompanying them by bike.

How many beers later and at what hideous hour I crawled into the sack for what seemed like a scant minute I cannot tell, but the sun was soon up and my eyes hurt and my brain was inert for the journey through France. Uneventful until we arrived at the circuit.

Getting in is frankly a right bastard, there seems to be about ten entry points for the soon to be great unwashed which we had to ‘trouver’ via the myriad signage and swarms of bikes. Each official was resolutely ‘non, non, monsieur’ sending us around several houses and up shed loads of garden paths until, finally with explicit instructions from Alf and a little belligerence we breached the outer ring and made our way into the circuit.

We were stopped in sight of the garages by a mustachioed dwarf who was resolutely determined to stop us. I tried to be diplomatic, explaining in simple terms that we were with a team, with a proper garage and that space had been reserved for us. The ‘Accueil’ had given us all the passes available. But ‘non’ it was not enough.

Now faced with steadfast refusal like this knowing he was mistaken started to really piss me off and when he told me to ‘en couler’ that was it. Frosty parked the camper in the road and I marched off to find the head fromage and Alf. To cut a long story short, we were let in and found our allotted position, but the refusal of gatekeeper bloke colored the general likeableness of his countrymen all weekend.

The team garage was right at the very end of pit lane and shared with team 78 ATS Peace & Run who were exceptional in the fact that they had endeavored to try and qualify a 675 Triumph Daytona. (Pink with flowers on it in a kind of Oxbow stylee). There were three male riders and the rest of the team were girls, pink overalls ‘n all. They hadn’t qualified and had dropped the bike also. We meeted and greeted joked and joshed, spirits were high.

Guy had dropped the no.1 Alf’s bike in practice however and it was being restored back to fitness when we arrived Friday afternoon.

The riders were not happy with the handling of the bike however and this may have been a result of set up problems. Now I won’t go into detail, but the bike was shod with xxxx Dunlops and equipped with some gorgeous Ohlin’s Superbike forks. The problem was that there were three riders with contrasting styles and a huge amount of settings. Finding a happy medium for Guy (a proper ‘biker’ in my opinion) who was is used to the bike moving around under him on proper roads and circuit specialists like Adam and Craig who were used to razor refined missiles was not going to be an easy task. In some respects a setting had to be found and any flaws had to be rode around. It was after all an endurance race.

The dictionary definition of endurance is ‘the ability or strength to continue or last, esp. despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions; stamina’ and was true to the mark in these events.

Steve Plater who was riding for the incredibly quick Superbike spec Kawasaki France Fuchs no 11 machine kindly offered help with front end settings, air gaps, rebound and compression etc (though I’m sure he didn’t have to and wasn’t supposed to).

He didn’t know me from Adam but when I approached him in pit lane walkabout thrusting a t-shirt at him to sign with a request that he asked the French riders and Hawk Kawasaki rider Scott Smart both in the Kawasaki France team to sign it, he was pleasant, all smiles and genuinely warm.
I’m not sure if it was a recognizable accent in a sea of Babel but when I went back to the Garage he grinned apologized that he had one more to get from Moreira and asked me to come back. We missed each other after that like ships in the night as he was either asleep or on circuit, but I’m sure if I manage to track him down he will send it on he seemed like that type of guy.

I also introduced myself to Scott Smart professing to know his father and holding back any embarrassing memories I harbored from meeting the thirteen year old Scott trussed in a hideous headlock of dental braces working at Paul’s Kawasaki franchise then in Paddock Wood Kent. ‘Hello mate how you doing’ he said casually. This is the man who gave Hawk their memorable BSB win on the C1 based ZX-10. I was chucking beer cans at the telly that day whooping, and here he was friendly as you like.

Unfortunately for Scott despite being second fastest in practice (his words not mine) he was pushed out of the weekend ride by the French rider who has more experience than him. Howze the guy supposed to get experience if they don’t let him ride? (Give Alf’s a ring for the Bol D’Or in September Scott he might let you out for a spin.).

I digress, there’s just so much to say and too little space.

A man with a bib upset the applecart somewhat announcing at 7pm that Alf had to move garages. Check the pix out again, it’s not just a toolbox and some tyres, it’s a 7.5 ton crammed panel truck’s worth.

Naturally disbelief and initial reluctance met the officials demands in should we say the most strident of terms, but the ultimatum was move or be disqualified. One more pin in the voodoo dummy of French officialdom that weekend.

It turned out that according to FIM regulations, any team contracted for the complete series was entitled to a garage to themselves if one was available. The pink trumpet hippie collective hadn’t qualified so voila we thought we had a garage to ourselves. We had not however contracted for the whole series (and were English) so we had to move. In hindsight fair play really but when you have to pack up and move, without being able to remove the timing box on pit wall at 8pm and then continue building the bike for the next morning does not engender a feeling of deep joy.

At 11.30pm with the bike pretty much in one piece Alf noticed in the wan light of the garage a reflection on the gold nitriding of the Ohlin’s fork leg. Further investigation revealed a slight nick from Guy’s off which had torn the seal and was leaking. You guessed it, it had to be replaced. Ok not a hard job, but another one to add to the growing scenario of aggravation. If we had an off in the race and a fork leg was damaged that was it ‘dommage‘! Race over.

Ohlins guru Zweitze Rooske (best name of the weekend) on site cleaned it up pretty good with some wet and dry type stuff, but it was never going to be 100% again.

The sky was salmon, a lonely contrail split the aerial scene, there was a crescent moon, I feel closed in surrounded by sound. In the distance an engine explodes and a muffled tumult followed its demise.

I crawled into the mighty camper at 1am having scribbled my notes and drunk a few beers. I vowed not to spend the next 24 hours cooped up in the Perspex prison that is the timing box, baking hot. (Ideal conditions for tomatoes), perched on pit wall. Ears assaulted every 1 min 45 seconds by the aforementioned tortured motors screaming their heads off in defiance and agony as the pilotes screwed the last ounce of power out of them down the long start finish straight.

The whirr banging had started from the canvas citadels grouped around the circuit Organs of discord. As the Gauls challenged the Franks and the Hun joined in with Tommy no doubt pitching into the Blitzkrieg of disharmony.

I remember previous years, the half lit Hieronymus Bosch world, of valve destroying oil burning noise. It won’t stop until Sunday morning at the earliest. Some people were not going to make it home on the mounts that bought them there. Put to the sword of rev limiter and kill switch madness.

A festival, a mechanical entropy of noxious carcinogenic vapor fried brain cells and inebriated stupidite The audience creating their own entertainment and for most the only entertainment, whilst preparation for the main event was relegated until tomorrow and other than the start relegated to almost behind the scenes, secondary to the massive partying taking place on the perimeter of this event.

Truly you top fuellers and party people you have to go once in your life. Ask an old git who has been in the past. They’ll tell you. They will look sidelong onto the middle distance of the sky and murmur ‘yes I remember Le Mans…… ‘Make sure you listen it’s almost certainly all true no matter how extreme it may sound.

Race day dawned. For pity sake give me some heavy narcs I’m morphing into a serious insomniac and my head hurts from the residual memories of yesterday’s hangover.

The engine was fired up and kitty litter from the previous days off spat out the twin Akrapovic trumpets, red hot they burnt the hand of Tom Burns son of the legendary Steve missing from the team personnel this year due to migration to Aussie.

Morning practice was over almost before it had started. The stunt show roared their way to ovation after ovation, the crowds were revved up. Time to climb into the Perspex prison, hot as a greenhouse. Guy had a piss against pit wall moments before the blart of the klaxon for the two warm up and sighting laps. 3pm clicked into place and we were off. ‘All aboard the crazy train’ (if you will allow me to quote Ozzy Ozbourne), only 24 hours to go.

Guy started from the rear of the grid way down the pecking order and so the great game began.

There wasn’t long to wait the 666 Diablo machine run by ‘Too Tall Tel’ Terry Rymer (a previous winner and champion) hit a Suzuki up the arse and limped back in badly damaged. We were already running 27th overall.

The first session for Guy Martin wound it’s course and we counted him in at 9 minutes to 4pm on the pit box inboard. 32 laps in.

The works Beemer baritoned its way past like a WW11 bomber (shakedown for WSB I hear you say). The Ducati 1098 similarly bassed its way through, the only discernible differences from the high pitched high revving fours screeching past.

Adam was out next and as he wailed past pit lane exit there was a definite weave to #59.The 666 Diablo machine was back out again.

Adam pitted 5 laps early seriously concerned about the handling. We dropped from 21st to 46th as the hoops were changed and the bike checked over.

Craig was next but pitted at 5.40 with a seriously overheating bike. Thirty eight minutes later with a new radiator installed and Tango sporting a scalded hand we were back out. The radiator had holed and when replaced it was discovered the ignition power fuse had also burnt out, meaning more delays while this problem was sought and rectified. We rejoined 3rd from last and twenty odd laps down. It was a long race ahead but our chances of a top ten finish were surely dashed.

The riders circulated and the race stayed mostly out of trouble, at 7.00pm the Diablo machine appears to be down again but rejoins the race.

The Alf’s riders were still struggling with the way the bike was behaving. It appeared to weave at the end of the start finish straight as the bikes ran wide for the first turn, it could have been many things, but there weren’t many other bikes displaying the same symptoms. The Bristling Beemer bassed and bombed around this section very robustly in its open class.

The guys kept circulating through evening and into the night, despite their best attempts we were still lying close to the foot of the leader board because of the unexpected expense of the previous radiator change.

Alf asked Dunlop to check out the front tyre of the bike. They did so and revealed a faulty carcass on the first front tyre and subsequently apparently the second.

Naturally this discovery helped explain some of the stability problems but the bike was set up as a best setting suitable to all the riders so to some extent the suspension set up had been aggravated by this now revealed tyre problem

Midnight. Round and round and round they rip through the air, lights blazing as they ravenously tear up the next sector. Luckily for me still in the timing box approximately 9 hours in I had an electronic display hooked up with the official timing available via the garage. This is much easier on the eyes as you don’t have to physically look out for them as in previous years. Just watch as the sectors countdown and record the lap time. And set the board for their next circulation.

1.20am We were still circulating and fighting hard to make up for the afternoons enforced stop, but it was going to take hours and we would have to rely on other teams ahead of us having problems.

Up front it was a tight pack of leading Suzuki’s with the GMT Yamaha with Gimbert and Checa on board. The Fuchs France Kawasaki featuring British interests Steve Plater were also battling hard to remain running with the pack

The Beemer drones down to pit lane exit and the rider nearly took out a line of perimeter cones as he sought the right switch to disengage the rev limiter to prevent pit lane speeding

Can we still assure ourselves of a top 12 or better finish we all knew the team were capable of?
The Ducati blasts past My bet that it wouldn’t go half distance was looking decidedly shakey, we have made up only two places.

The MV Augusta of team 31 swept past in 21st place behind the Beemer in 20th position.

Round and round and round, too noisy to hear the circus in full swing no doubt out there on the perimeter, ‘Out there there are no stars‘. As fire and smoke and lights and glare and glazed eyes act out their own dramas.

Thirteen hours to go. Could do with a beer! No, two in fact, and then some kip and a bit of a rest from the constant noise and activity before I have to face it all again, hopefully more refreshed.

A smoky firework of a bike fizzes past, serious smoke and big trouble very soon for his team to fix. From what I can gather in between hasty glances at the big screen at the end of pit lane (before the broadcast stopped late in the night) The GMT94 Team Yamaha R1 was heading the pack with the constant threat of the Sert Suzuki’s and The Fuchs France Kawasaki. All Superbike specification. Premier class. The smoker has returned, no.8 by the looks of it the very popular Team Bolliger on the Kawasaki

The team that had taken over our garage earlier comes in and gets pushed in the garage, the bike has taken a beating all over and activity starts as all the dead bits are stripped away and then the basics of the bike investigated. They wheeled their spare bike in and appeared to be contemplating quite how they were gonna patch the bike up safely, within the rules and get the riders back out.
It soon became apparent that it was game over for them.

I think it was about 3.15am when I climbed out of the pit box. To be fair I had snatched brief intervals here and there to get tea and victuals and John ‘more than two cylinders is just plain greedy’ Brookes who snapped all the pix of the weekend in a most excellent fashion deputized kindly, along with Frosty who also helped out a lot, ensuring that there were two of us in the box for at least part of the time.

I left my armband in the garage and shuffled off to the haven not far from the madding crowd, the Mighty Talbot Excalibur. (Now firmly ensconced after the previous day’s mild fracas) in it’s reserved slot. Away from the garages and next to the mobile kitchen.
An absolute must, The Kitchen, at an event like this. Mike the cook supported a team of twenty over the weekend at all hours and had already done so most of the previous weeks practice and set up period, with the first wave of the team setting out their stall.

I sat on the steps of the camper van and drunk two stubbies, smoked a roll up and just listened. before turning in.

I set my alarm for 5.30am which would allow me at least half hour wake up period before heading back into the dawn.

Mr. Burn (damn fine engineer bloke) woke me up when he entered the van at about 4.30 to say that Alf had had to make the decision to retire after the second radiator had also been holed. Not only did this take a long time to fix. There wasn’t a spare, it was the one leaking, allowing the bike to overheat.

I greeted this news barely awake but it confirmed my earlier thoughts. The sum of the weekend’s troubles had reached critical point. The first DNF that The Sussex based team had encountered at Le Mans in four years of racing in this prestigious event.

Logically the law of averages has to kick in at some point. The more you do the more likely you are to fail at some point. It’s a grueling race and the team had worked hard at their game, but disappointment was hard to put to one side.
The team had completed 376 laps in 12 hours and 52 minutes

Alf the Team owner said he was feeling positive despite the enforced end to this year’s campaign. He has some plans up his sleeve I’m sure of it.

That new morning and throughout the day the equipment was stowed and crammed in various support vehicles, the race continued unabated, but the field of runners had taken a beating with teams dropping out through the nigh until the end of the race. The 30th edition of this race was over, the noise stopped and the dust settled. Only half the field had finished with Sert Suzuki taking the honours first and second 818 laps in 24 hours. Kawasaki France third. Phase one previous champions featuring Glen Richards and Warwick Nowland also managed a difficult finish battling to 9th overall. I hope the Beemer finished, the marque hadn’t participated in an endurance race for fifty years. Variety is the spice of life and it makes a change to see a non Japanese bike competing.

Finally we were off to the hotel for food and sleep.

I lay awake most of that night unable to sleep, my head buzzing with the recent memory and tiredness.

On the ferry when traveling home the next day there was talk of the Bol D’Or in September down at Magny-Cours. Alf didn’t say no.

Apparently all three of the riders were better for the experience they had gained, Guy may have offered to come down with the team again, Alf had telemetry planned, more dyno time, separate workshop facilities devoted purely to the raucous ZX-10R and a shakedown test in mind at a UK endurance round.

Endurance racing is big in France and a lot of Brits go, but for those of you that it has passed by. Check out the web links at the end of this piece. You owe it to yourself to go to Le Mans one year, in my opinion it ranks with other musts for those of you who like a proper ride out and knees up. Like the IOM not far away, 100th year celebrations and all that.

I’m going to sleep now!


Doby Trutcenden 2.5.07

The Team
http://www.alfsmotorcycles.co.uk/

Support
http://www.ukbike.com/

Pictures of the event courtesy of John Brookes.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yeahmeagain/collections/