The Stephens prepared 356 GT speedster was in plateau 3, one up from JR's, so it was always going to be a big challenge to get a decent result against the bigger more powerful cars, but we managed 15th on scratch and 4th on Index....well chuffed!!
For those of you unfamiliar with the car, we had a disastrous 2014 LMC, resulting in a major rebuild over the intervening 2years. Sportswagen did the bodywork (...thanks Bruce and team) and then we built it up.....arriving at this years LMC untested!
Quali went well....the engine was not running as crisply as we would like resulting in a time of 5.40 putting us in P27. Although quicker than we had been in 2014, it felt like we could and should have gone a lot quicker further highlighted when we head Gareth Burnett in JRs car in plateau 2 had put in a 5.35!
Night Quali also passed with no major dramas....5.44 P24.
Fist race was at 7pm on the Saturday, and this is when nerves really started to jangle as it was on lap one of race 1 at LMC2014 that we had our "moment" at Arnage. Thankfully we came through unscathed, but we made a right horlicks of the driver change, loosing about 1 minute in the pits, and the engine would not pick up clean going thought left hand bends...lap time of 5.36 showed we were getting quicker...P18
With the next race not starting till 3am, we set too and drained down the fuel system cleaned all fuel filters, changed the filter King, reset the float fuel levels in an effort to sort the pick up issue.
The night race was much better engine ran clean. Sadly a safety car period spoilt the race, especially as we got seperated from the leaders by an individual who clearly does not understand the safety car rules, and rather than driving safetly to catch up the safety car crocodile, poodled round at 80kph....very frustrating. Lap time 5.37 P21.
Driving Le Mans at night is a very very special experience!
Final race was at 11am, so we had to set to straight after the night race to partially prep the car for the final race, falling into "bed" (aka the race trailer) at 5.30am for 2 hours of kip!
Final race was very special.....given the hard work the whole team had to put in to get us there, we needed a quick time to justify all the effort.....a lap time of 5.30 was the outcome....not bad for a little 356......spookily this was the time JR had said we get down to before the first Quali session...clearly he had more faith in us than we did!!!!
What an experience, thanks to all that came over, said hello and offered us support/comfort as required....I am not sure we will be able to top this one
