04/05/2023
GBSC VICTORY at the 10th Edition 24HR Le Mans
Racing In the Dark - Conquering the Digital Le Mans
Well, where do I begin? What a race! What a weekend! After 24 hours of racing, the boys from Great Barr Slot Car found themselves insurmountably winning the LMP2 class at arguably the toughest slot car race anywhere. Little Nueve (Little Nine) had completed in-excess of 4600 laps of the Circuit de la Sarthe at an average lap time of 18.5 seconds.
Now before we go forward and discuss the race itself further, lets go back to April 2022. After a late injection of pace, Great Barr Slot Car overcame a deficit of roughly 160 laps to take second on the podium in the LMP2 class behind Slotcarazing. Though that’s not the important part of this chapter of the story.
On the Monday directly after the 24 hours of Le Mans 2022, Curtis Timmins & Chris Whitehouse had already decided on their weapon of choice for the 24 hours of Le Mans 2023. The Technical Director of Audi Sport was right, it really does take a year to win Le Mans and the preparation for next year starts the day after the race.
So by December 2022, the class, the manufacturer, the model and the livery were all sorted. Four of the six allowed drivers had signed contracts with GBSC and the hunt was on for the remaining two drivers to complete the roster. What better place to start looking than the club itself on a Saturday morning prior to Christmas.
Speed is key to winning Le Mans but it’s not the biggest factor, endurance is crucial but not guaranteed and consistency is ideal but difficult to achieve. As of December 2022, in the four drivers already confirmed for the 24 hours of Le Mans, GBSC Skipper Chris Whitehouse had some fine weapons in his arsenal.
In his Dad (Bill Whitehouse) he had a driver with over forty years of experience in racing slot cars but not just that he had a good soundboard for ideas. He had a people-person, you see Bill can talk to anyone. This made him approachable so the new drivers coming in would have a friendly face to chat with, an experienced racer to learn from.
In Curtis Timmins, he had an excellent car builder and mechanic. He had a bloody quick driver too which would come in handy he knew if the metaphorical ever hit the fan. Above all though, in Curtis he had someone who wouldn’t rest until the car was as well prepared as possible and he had a reliable, dependable friend to steer the ship in his absence.
In John Lamb, Chris knew he had a driver who could clock up the laps. He knew John would happily put the teams result first, above and beyond any personal goals. Chris also knew he had someone who would almost certainly make everyone laugh and feel welcome. John also brought the ability to work on the cars should an opportunity arise.
What does he have in himself I hear you ask? Well, I’ll let you make up your own mind on that when you finish reading this report.
For the two remaining spots on the team, Curtis hand-picked Richard Faulkner and Chris recruited Liam Webster. Between the two of them, Richard & Liam brought elements of all three key factors; speed, endurance and consistency. Luckily for the team they brought a lot more than just those three skills.
Fast forward to 48 hours prior to the race and Chris, Bill & Curtis are sat around the table in Bill’s kitchen assembling the last components onto the race chassis’. The motors and digital chips are soldered in and weights are positioned to meet the minimum weight of 69 grams. The last few jobs will be completed prior to first practise on Friday morning.
First practise arrived and Great Barr Slot Car made it out onto the track with roughly half an hour to go. The bodies had only landed in the UK that morning and Joao of Olifer Racing had personally delivered them. Small blue LEDs had been removed from previous years car to be refitted into the new car. This short but key process took about fifteen minutes but was only successful on one car. More fettling would be required on the second car.
Chris Whitehouse’s first impression of the car was solidified as he drove down the Mulsanne straight for the first time. His words to Curtis were simply “the car just flew, so smooth”! It was a great omen of things to come though it wasn’t all plain sailing. A slight hitch in pairing the controller to the car and some other issues which I’ll come onto later meant that the car didn’t count laps.
In the hour between first and second practise, the race was on to diagnose the problem. Thankfully, Liam was on hand to prompt the team to check the firmware in the chips and controllers. With help from Alex of DiSCA and Mauricio of Slot It, the firmware was updated and from then on, every lap was clocked.
The lighting issues in the second car were identified and Richard soldered in another LED kindly traded for use of a screwdriver with Worthing Digital. Both cars were up and running and both ran smoothly. The rest of practise was uneventful.
First qualifying came round quickly and Chris Whitehouse laid down the gauntlet with a lap time of 16.01 seconds. The time was matched and bettered by Scuderia Viking: overall LMP2 pole was closely fought until Curtis came on late into the first qualifying session and set a time that wouldn’t be beaten. His pole time of 15.23 seconds was an absolute Jaffer! The next best time was 15.43 set by Scuderia Viking, two tenths of a second behind.
From then on, qualifying was about giving all the drivers track time to show the race directors that they could handle the circuit. Liam, Bill, John & Richard all dipped into the 16 second lap times though only Chris, Bill & Curtis qualified in the dark. This point should be remembered when we get further into this tale.
As of 13:20pm on Saturday 1st April, the grid for the 10th edition of the DiSCA Le Mans 24hr was set and all eyes turned to the drivers parade and concourse d’elegance. DSCA would go on to win the concourse d’elegance with a beautifully painted LMP1 Rebellion R13 however that is but a footnote in this glorious tale. When called upon to have their photo taken, Great Barr Slot Car looked smart and professional in their black hoodies with red, silver and gold trim from hobbyist
manufacturer John Lamb. Safe to say, they meant business!
I’ll split the race itself into three section to make reading about it easier. The strategy for the first section was carefully considered and organised by Chris (from 3pm until 3am). The second section was managed partially on the fly by Chris & Curtis (3am until 6am) but the last third which is arguably the most important was orchestrated by Curtis with a small request from Chris. All in all, everyone played their part!
The start was over in a flash and very soon into the race, Chris found himself leading Le Mans in the LMP2 class by a margin of about 1-2 laps. Though the heat was soon applied by Scuderia Vikings Tom Ainscow and Chris found himself fighting a rear-guard action to maintain first position. Sadly, for Scuderia Vikings, this was the start of the woes. At an hour and half into the race, Chris was scheduled to hand over to Liam though sensing the issues that Scuderia Vikings were having, Chris chose to stay on.
The gamble paid off as with fifteen minutes to the end of the second hour, Scuderia Vikings had a major issue and found themselves in the pits. Chris capitalised and put Great Barr Slot Car 46 laps into the lead. This enabled rookie driver & bacon-saver Liam Webster to make an important contribution on debut.
Liam held onto the lead whilst driving against Scuderia Vikings stalwart and Slot It top dog, Mauricio Ferrari. Pacing himself for the night, Liam managed to drive for an hour and handed over to John Lamb who also managed to retain the lead from Scuderia Vikings who at this point in the race were charging and charging fast.
Prior to bringing Liam back on before a scheduled bed-time, Richard took over from John and maintained second in class which had momentarily been lost due to a scheduled tyre change in Johns stint. Dusk was fast approaching, and Richard got his first taste of an endurance race, handling himself very respectfully.
Bill took over once Richard had been on track for about an hour and quickly got his head down and kept his cool. His game face was clear to see! Once Bill had finished his stint, it was his turn to hit the sack and get some much needed shut eye prior to the early morning co-ordinated push.
Handing back over to Liam, Great Barr Slot Car were at this point around 20 laps behind Scuderia Vikings but to use a phrase from Master & Commander, “the deficit was 20 laps and holding”. Liam held his nerve and demonstrated some great driving in traffic, carefully negotiating the slower GT cars.
At around 10:30pm, it was Chris’s turn to begin his favourite stint of the race: taking the car out of the light and into the dark. Once dark hits at Le Mans, you can’t get out until morning! There are about three point on the track where you can clearly see the bodywork of your car, at the start finish straight/pits, at the Porsche Hospitality just before the Ford Chicane and for a smidgen of a second at Mulsanne Corner. Even more reason to have a light in the cockpit to identify your car.
This period of the race is where the lead changed hands and the momentum shifted in the battle for LMP2 honours. Sadly, Scuderia Vikings had yet more trouble and Chris was able to catch about 10 laps back on them, just in time for the weapon that is Curtis Timmins to be unleashed. A master stroke orchestrated by Chris & Curtis allowed Curtis to find his rhythm and press Scuderia Vikings hard for a prolonged amount of time (roughly three and a half hours).
As Chris woke up at 3:00am, Great Barr Slot Car had taken the lead of LMP2. A position they would hold for the remainder of the race. The scheduled driver change put Chris back in the car however Chris didn’t feel too steady on his pins and so Liam Webster stepped up and drove beautifully for around an hour and half from 3:30am until 5:00am. Considering he had never driven at night in qualifying, this must have been really daunting but when asked by Chris after an hour of his stint had passed, “Do you want to carry on or finish”? Liam replied, “I’m going to stay on”!
This according to Skipper Chris was the stint of the race. It showed the spirit of Le Mans and a lot of courage to take control of a car which Liam didn’t know too well prior to the weekend and drive around consistently for ninety minutes. Liam also had to deal with the longest off-track time delay that the team would encounter as the rear wing was broken and required immediate rectification. This stint, Chris thinks is the stint that shows Great Barr Slot Car were making a serious, undeniable grab for the victory!
Chris took over for another hour and a half at 4:30am and held the lead, putting more distance between himself and Scuderia Vikings. Reports were now starting to circulate the paddock that Scuderia Vikings were onto their second body due to the body mounts splitting in on-track collisions. This resulted in a late morning complete rebuild of the second chassis.
Bill, Liam, Richard & John all now took the helm between them in stints until 9:30am when Chris returned for his final stint prior to the weapon being unleashed again in another three hour marathon. John had been given fresh rubber at 9am so by the time Chris & Curtis got in, the car was driving beautifully: all be it with an interesting aerodynamic device holding the rear wing down. I’m referring to the medical grade tank tape from the rear diffuser to the bodywork.
In this second three hour stint, Curtis as the other drivers before him carved yet more laps out of Scuderia Vikings. At the point at which he handed over to Bill for the final three quarters of an hour, the lead was in excess of 450 laps. In fact, Great Barr Slot Car could have stopped racing with two hours to go and wouldn’t have been caught. Joao of Olifer Racing came and congratulated the team for their victory.
Though it wasn’t over yet, this team effort had one final act!
Many moons before this race, Chris had been lucky enough to race in the Scalextric World Championship of 2010. He’d finished a race in the lead and experienced the fantastic & ecstatic feeling of winning a big slot car race. The one family member with him that day was his dad, Bill. This was Bill’s time to shine and to embrace the feeling they had experienced together all those years ago but from the other side of the track.
Curtis had been asked to give Chris a lead over the opposition to allow Bill the honour of bringing the car home free from the pressure of a late battle for the lead. In hindsight, Curtis might have been a bit excessive giving the team a lead of over 450 laps, but the job had been accomplished. The lead had been achieved and Chris was able to have a moment with his Dad prior to the last stint and importantly Great Barr Slot Car were able to call themselves Le Mans Champions!
In all seriousness, the last few laps were a blur! Chris, Curtis, John, Liam & Richard along with John’s son Christopher sat together and marshalled at the Ford Chicane as Bill crossed the line. Laughing and joking about the race, it came as a bit of a shock when the track stopped at 3pm on Sunday but the team had done it. The four years of planning, preparation, hardship and disappointment had cemented friendships and a team bond that only endurance racing can truly give.
The boys from Great Barr Slot Car had conquered Le Mans!
Acknowledgements & Epilogue
As captain of Great Barr Slot Car, I’d like to say a massive thank you to every member of the team for their hard work and effort during and leading up to the event. Particularly, I’d like to thank my Dad for giving me this passion and persevering with my pursuit of victory at Le Mans. I’d like to give special thanks to Curtis for building a great car again! Without this key feature, we wouldn’t have stood a chance at competing. I’d also like to thank John Lamb of Derby HO for kindly letting us stay at his house prior to the race weekend. I’d also like to thank him for joining us last year last minute when we were short of drivers. Lastly, I’d like to say well done and
many thanks to our two rookie drivers Liam & Richard: you handled yourselves admirably and all of you have a job offer for next should you like to join us again.
