24Hour racing

lefthanddrive · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject: 24Hour racing

No, it's not a typo. I'm actually going to write about 24h racing, quite common in France.

The story: I worked in a modelshop from 95 to 97 and we had an endurance team for 24h racing. We did 5, 3 were organised by Tamiya France and we raced a TL01 (twice) and a F1. We won all 3. the other 2 were open and we raced a heavily modified SST. We came 2nd and 3rd.
There were always 10 teams involved.

I met one of the guys again this month and even if there is no shop any more, he is still into it big time and managed to find another 3 people, inexperienced, who joined him into his mini Z craze. They tried the first edition of the mini Z 24h last year but had to give up after 4 h, mainly due to lack of equipment.

They want to have another go this year and they managed to talk me into being their team leader

1. If you know of any legal substance to help me be on the right line at
3am please let me know
2. I have no mini Z stuff and they are on a budget. I am thefore willing to
help you get rid of any Mini Z spares lying around. We are going to buy
a car but in 5000 laps things can break.

I would be very grateful if I could borrow a mini Z so that I have time to see how it's made, what could be improved and he parts I would need.
We plan not to use any of the parts or cars we borrow but we would pay for anything we break

If you don't want the car back I promissed I'll find it a good track.

AAA batteries are also welcome

Please pm me if you want to help in any way or simply want to know more.

I'll post pictures of the team and let you know how things are going.

More details are available on the french (sorry) kyosho website
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Hugh Jengine · Joined: 25 Feb 2008 Posts: 206

Hello Franck,
Will you be racing 2WD or 4WD chassis Mini Z models? Let me know and i'll dig around in the garage and see what i have,
Ryk

Mr.B · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 4:42 pm Post subject:

24hrs!
I reckon you'll be needing some match-sticks for your eyelids.......

lefthanddrive · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:10 pm Post subject:

My personal best is 34h with no sleep. A bright yellow shell and proper coffee helps. I gave up on match sticks as only seeing half a car is no good. The only issue is to get a chauffeur for the way back home. From just seated in the car to deep sleep in 30s is another personal best...
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lefthanddrive · Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 10:12 pm Post subject:

Dun it

And even managed to finish the race. It was a pretty good experience and we had a really good time.

The track was open at 10 on saturday, time to set the car up. Thanks to people who kindly lent us parts we could check how mini-z were built and decided to go go for a 2wd. Wise choice, 2 AWD cars started smoking after only a few hours. The car was going pretty well in practice and we were confident.

14h track closed, lunch and all lined up behind the pace car at 15h. Rolling start was a good idea, shame the pace car driver didn't even manage to do a whole lap...Sad

And we actually were on the pace. The track was 130m long. All laps were sub 31s, with a fastest of 28.76. 35 min into the race the Mc Laren was in 2nd place when the motor mount broke. 10 min to replace it meant we were last

Nevermind, focus and stay on the track and aim for 30s laps. All went well until the 5th driver got a bit nervous. It was his first race! never saw anybody shaking so much. But he was trying. pb of 38s made it harder to catch up but we were having fun. I managed to sleep 20min twice in 36 hours. You don't need Red Bull when you know that your team mates are asleep, apart from the one on the rostrum (at times) and you have to check that the batteries are charging, be ready to change the batteries in the car and run because there are no marshalls.
Somebody mentionned getting a Red Bull sponsorships but the AA might be more appropriate. I think that everything that could break did break. As I was saying,one driver was very nervous.
After 23h both steering hubs and the chassis were broken and we had used all the spares so we had to turn snooker style by bouncing on the track markers

Not very effective but we managed 30 laps in that final hour and went to the finish line.

130m track. We did 2031 laps in 24 h and finished 5th out of 8
A sweet to the first one to post total distance in km and average speed

Can't wait for next year. I'll post a few pictures

Whatabout an english team for next year? Anybody up for it?
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Mr.B · Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:26 pm Post subject:

Well done Franck.
26.39km and 1.0996kmph.
Yummy.

sharpie · Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:55 pm Post subject:

26.39 kilometre = 16.397 miles

24 hrs to get to colchester from clacton

nice one

not sure i could stay awake for that long though

lefthanddrive · Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:19 am Post subject:

sweet is still up for grabs
I give you a clue: think NEC for the distance... Answers in cm accepted.
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sharpie · Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 5:47 pm Post subject:

26.39 kilometere= 2639000 centimetres

BigD · Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 8:27 pm Post subject:

or a long way

well done frank

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