Dunlop 24 Hours of Dubai-
For six years now, the FIA sanctioned Dubai Autodrome has headed its international motorsport calendar with its very own 24 hour endurance race. Whilst its provenance is not in the same league as Le Mans or the Nürburgring just yet, it is nevertheless making quite a name for itself.
This year, 90 cars will be driven by 400 drivers from 120 countries to compete on the 5.39km Grand Prix circuit, an eclectic mix of medium to high speed on and off camber turns with some elevation thrown in for good measure.
The Dubai event has started attracting some high profile names. This year sees ex-Formula 1 pilot and five times DTM champion, Bernd Schneider, driving a factory supported Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 (one of three gull-winged SLSs making their 24 hour racing debut), NASCAR driver and two-time Daytona winner Michael Waltrip in an AF Corse Ferrari 430GTC, and a star-studded sprinkling of DTM and Porsche Carrera Cup winners in the ubiquitous Porsche 997 GT3 Cup cars.
To be invited to drive alongside these giants of the motorsport world, albeit in a humble BMW 120d, is an amateur racer’s dream. Now in my ninth year as a gentleman racer, perhaps in my more Walter Mittyesque moments I imagine I’m blurring the line between “pro” and “am”, but I can’t deny the thrill of potentially rubbing shoulders (or paint) with some of the world’s best drivers.
My steed for the event is run by A2B Racing, a British owned Dubai-based outfit who prepare and manage cars for the hotly contested UAE Touring Car Championship. If there was a prize for pluckiness and grit, these chaps would already be favourites. With a budget equivalent to the shoe shine bill of the top factory teams, and a mere fraction of our competitors in the lowest D1 (diesel) category, A2B will need to dig deep and play for pride.
I will be sharing driving duties with three Dubai-based racers, all of them experienced on this, their home track. Australian and UAE karting champion Chris Wishart; UAE Touring Car class 2 front runner Spencer Vanderpal ; and Paul Denby, reigning GTB class champion in the UAE GT Championship and my Porsche Cup car co-driver in this year’s campaign.
As used as we all are to success in our domestic championships, all four of us will be driving outside of our natural comfort zone in this little diesel and experiencing life at the least glamorous end of the pits.
13 January, 11:30: Practice
The driving environment is so different to the road car from which it’s been modified – I’m sitting impossibly low, craning over the top of the wheel to spot the apex, and the wing mirrors are hard to see through the window nets, something that will prove critical to manage when the race begins.
The brakes are sensitive and heavily over-servoed, a hangover from its road car origins. I smash them hard and late, trail braking like my Porsche Cup car, when instead I should be tapping them, carrying momentum, just like a go-kart.
Mid race action
There’s no ABS, so late braking will simply flat-spot the tyres and lose us precious minutes in the pits. After a few minutes behind the wheel I start to relax a little, though my tyres are picking up the detritus of rubber marbles where I’ve gone off line to avoid the multitude of faster cars. Although I can now manage my various controls and my mirrors to spot the quicker cars, the shuddering through the steering wheel caused by this “pickup” is deeply unnerving.
Chris recognises the challenge of overwhelming sensations that I’m feeling, doing my first 24 hour race with so many cars around me. “This race is all about managing the cars around you,” he says. “You’re doing fine.” He pats me on the back as I come in from practice, equal fastest time with Paul. My fears of letting down my team mates have not materialised just yet.
The 120d is an incredibly quiet car as you might expect from a diesel. There’s no change up light and, out on track, the engine note is barely audible over the cacophonous roar of supercars around me, so I need to keep glancing down at the rev counter to make sure I’m in the torque sweet spot, a narrow range from 2500 to 4500 RPM. The motorsport clutch has an awkward biting point and the gearbox is surprisingly balky, particularly when compared to the mechanically magnificent ‘boxes in the Porsches in which I have spent most of my racing career.
But the turn-in is the sweetest thing you could imagine. Beautifully composed, utterly neutral, not a hint of understeer, the car tacks in with exceptional accuracy. And the pedals are perfectly spaced for heeling and toeing, I’m surprised to note.
We are still several seconds off the quickest cars in class D1, though our competitors are running higher powered engines, wider tracks and bigger aero kits. We should be able to shave off a couple more seconds with practice, though it may not be enough to match our brawnier neighbours.
I take a break and stand in the midday sun, observing each car making its stop and slowly driving through the pit lane. SLSs mingle with Golfs, mechanics yell and sling tools across the floor, families offer moral support from deck chairs around the pit garages. The circus is in town.
If there is one overriding sensation in motorsport, it is noise. A staccato popping of machine gun fire from the exhaust of a Ferrari 430GT, a baritone chop-chop-chop like helicopter blades from the SLS on its pit lane speed limiter, a low resonance boom from an evil looking low-slung Renault Megane like a gangster on a drive-by, a complex mechanical gnashing from the Lamborghini Gallardo’s V10, the familiar flat six bag of nails coupled with gearbox whine from a Porsche 911 Cup. Out on the track at full chat, of course, the sounds will be very different.
15:00: Qualification
When it’s my turn to head out, the car fails to start. Bump starting is not working and the pit crew discover a faulty ignition switch so we are forced to start the car from the engine bay. This proves something of an inconvenience given my embarrassing habit of stalling regularly: the clutch is superlight and the biting point is right at the bottom. I feel self-conscious every time I pull away. Nothing for it but give it maximum beans as I pull out of the pits. My little legs just cannot reach and I finally opt to stick a cushion behind my back so I don’t need to stretch quite so much. With almost a foot in height difference between me and Spencer, the range of human dimensions our car must accommodate is never going to make everyone comfortable.
Paul sets our best quali time, though a 2min 38sec won’t trouble our D1 competitors. We are 83rd on the grid out of 85 starters. This really doesn’t bode well for the next 24 hours. Despite a smattering of trophies from the national championships, and the knowledge of our home circuit, we’re unused to seeing ourselves at the back of the grid. Oh well, we concede, let’s just treat this as a bit of fun: making it to the end will be a sort of victory.
18:00: Night practice
If I thought being the slowest car on the grid was challenging during the day, then night driving in this car is something else.
The arrival of the quicker supercars is announced by the rapid flashing of their strobe lights from a distance away. As each car passes, the little Beemer is savaged and left swaying in their considerable wake and I find myself gripping the wheel in terror.
Race day
A crisp morning, a blue sky and freshness in the air. “We’ll find out where we are in about 20 hours into the race,” says Paul. And indeed, who knows if the more powerful cars in our class will struggle with reliability over the full 24 hours. Here’s hoping…
Spencer is convinced that we have a strong chance of success if we bang out metronomically consistent lap times. Success? I would like something of what he’s smoking, please. This is officially the World’s Slowest Car.
13:15
Lined up right at the back of the grid, the A2B team poses for photos in high spirits. I’m keeping my thoughts from my colleagues, suffering my own private existential crisis. Why are we even here?
14:00
Paul’s experience of 24 hour endurance racing and the manic rolling starts of the UAE GT Championship means he will start the race, though I’m sure comparing diving into turn 1 with 20 cars in a GT race versus 84 cars today is probably irrelevant. No matter, he gets a clean start and settles in for the long haul.
14:03
Code 60, the endurance racing equivalent of a pace car: a Porsche 997 Cup has crashed spectacularly in the opening lap. Paul is forlornly at the back of the grid. God, I hope these chaps are right about this being a war of attrition – I really want to get on the podium, but I have serious doubts this is the right vehicle to do it.
14:25
Green flag restart. Almost immediately, we’re lapped by the leading cars.
14:57
Less than an hour in, and the attrition has begun. Paul has climbed to 77th overall and one of our rival BMWs is already in the pits. With 40-75bhp advantages over our car, our heavily modified rivals are overheating, despite this being a relatively cold day by Dubai standards.
15:25
Some concern in the pits: Paul radios in that a Honda has rammed the back of him in the braking zone. The damage is slight (a lost valance and a bent exhaust) and Paul has got the jump on the next placed car in our class, a SEAT diesel. We are no longer last in class!
Paul pits in a very creditable 69th place. Spencer is next out and bangs out consistent lap times just as he said he would, climbing to P5 in class. Quality driving. Mine is the next stint – can I live up to my colleagues’ excellence?
18:00
I get the first night stint. “Remember mate,” advises Chris in his distinctive Aussie twang, “You don’t want to shut the door after the first front runner passes you. Chances are there’s another one or more behind, but you just won’t see them till it’s too late.”
Wise words. As I exit the pits and enter the unlit portion of the circuit, almost immediately I am attacked by two points of light in my rear view. Into the braking zone, they split dramatically on either side, turning into six points and growing exponentially brighter. Within a split second, my decision to stay wide on the turn pays off, as two Porsches and a Ferrari dive into the turn and disappear. That was close.
18:55
A Porsche fills my rear view mirror in the braking zone of the Zuhour Kink, so named after a fellow driver who wiped out there in a touring car race a few seasons back. Dubai’s very own version of Eau Rouge is not for the faint-hearted, and definitely not a place you want to get alongside a Porsche at high speed. He darts both sides of me before passing on the inside, locks up the brakes and strikes my left front wheel. He spins violently, atomising polystyrene sign boards in his path, but somehow we both get going again.
The contact has damaged my front left wheel and I pit, though I need to drive through twice due to radio problems – the next pit garage has inadvertently switched channel and my crew are not ready the first time. I’m really annoyed about this and fired up: my next two laps are an adrenalin-fuelled 2min 36sec, though I then calm down and aim for consistency and smoothness.
By the end of my stint, we’ve climbed to 55th overall, and P3 in class. This is looking really good. Is it too much to hope that we might have a sniff of the podium tomorrow? I don’t want to think about it, but the thought is just too powerful to dismiss as fanciful nonsense. Let’s not think about it too much. Focus!
21:49
Paul is suited up and waiting for Chris to come in. We are still P3, but there’s trouble behind us: two D1 cars are rapidly catching us. They are several seconds a lap quicker – can our tortoise beat the hares? At the eight hour mark, it looks like it could be a three way battle for that last podium spot.
21:55
Chris gets tagged on the way in – he’s sandwiched by an Aston on one side and a Ferrari on the other. With nowhere for him to hide, the Ferrari misjudges the dive and swipes his front left. We lose 11 crucial minutes in the pit lane trying to bang the wheel back into shape before installing Paul. We’re back down to P4.
22:44
It turns out the left lower suspension arm has sheared – a consequence of the two collisions – and Paul is unable to make right turns. He’s back in the pits and we are losing a lot of ground on the third place SEAT Leon Supercopa diesel. All those hard won places ticking away – we are back down to 61st place overall.
The A2B boys go to work fixing it, arms and legs a flurry underneath the car, a picture of frenetic energy and organised chaos, though Paul in the driver’s seat is calmness personified, sitting silently in the cocoon of nomex and helmet, waiting for the car to drop off the jacks.
After 16 minutes, the damage is fixed, brakes and discs changed for good measure, Paul fires up, the pit crew scan the pit lane for a clear exit, and bang the bonnet: we’re good to go.
With terrible irony, the moment Paul exits the pit, a Code 60 is flagged forcing all teams to slow to the mandatory 60kph whilst a clean-up operation takes place. A number of teams take the opportunity to bring their cars in for mechanical work. Damn and blast it, why couldn’t our suspension arm fail 15 minutes later?
23:22
Paul is back in just as soon as the Code 60 ends! “This is where our master plan unravels,” says Paul ruefully. The tracking is so far out that the car is undriveable, and our podium aspirations are being cruelly crushed.
Spencer’s out next.
00:35
I’m suited up and waiting to take over from Spencer. The overall leading BMW Z4 GT3 pulls into the pits for a changeover, a futuristic silver and matt black missile with what looks like dry ice rising off it, its eerie fogginess dispersing the light from harsh inspection lamps now ringing it. Hunkered down and bad to the bone, it looks for all the world like Doc Brown’s DeLorean from Back to the Future. The driver seems to be wearing a space suit. Great Scott!
01:37
My second two hour stint. Oh my dear Lord. The little Beemer is horrifyingly twitchy through turns two to five. At each pass of this high speed long right hander, I can’t believe I don’t get collected by the predators snapping at my tail. Not only is the steering off centre following the suspension arm change, but it requires several reactive corrections at 150kph, and it must be equally unnerving for the following carnivores trying to make a clean pass. The big dogs are hunting in packs – four or five at a time, travelling nose to tail like a bullet train. Close the door into the apex after the first one and you risk being wiped out by any one of the following.
I have driven some fast race cars, and I have had hairy moments, collisions even, but this is a whole new definition of white-knuckled wide-eyed fear. I’m totally wired.
On each lap, making it to the long back straight without incident is an achievement in itself. A suffocating thick blackness prevails on this side of the circuit –
lifeless and lonely, like the dark side of the moon. Here in this floating capsule I can compose myself for a few brief moments, whilst incoming starships strobe me and hurtle past on either side, their exhausts popping and crackling on the overrun like the strafing of gunfire. Closing speeds are so rapid that their screeching is audibly Doppler shifted, each monstrous predator sucked forwards towards the vortex in the distance, then warping out of sight into the blackest reaches of space.
In space, no-one can hear you scream, so they say. But I hear the stark hollow wail of a 430GT, the whipcrack gear change of a passing Megane, a NASCAR rumble from the SLS, the angry blare of the Z4, and the familiar flat six bark of the wonderful wide body GT3 R, its rump bouncing vigorously as it passes. And somehow the blanket of night only serves to amplify and enhance these sensations, memories which will be etched into my consciousness forever.
02:50
Despite the tracking, I’ve somehow managed to maintain station at P3, and gained four places overall. Perhaps our rivals are even more terrified than we are and struggling to sight the blind apexes at night.
A dab of the brake pedal at 180kph into the braking zone past the Zuhour Kink, aim for the first of a double apex into the left hand on-camber bowl, heel and toe to shift down, then… TWANG. My left foot goes to the floor and I can’t get the car into gear. Oh now come on, you cannot be serious. After repeated attempts I find third gear and limp to the pits.
Chris’s face is a picture of concern as A2B’s Lloyd Bettinson plants himself upside down in the footwell to examine the clutch mechanism. We’ve come so far and we were doing so well. Is this the gremlin that will put us out of the race?
04:30
1 hour 40 minutes. That’s how long it took. The Bettinson brothers, Gareth and Lloyd, and Gareth Cross have fashioned an ingenious solution to fix the clutch master cylinder. Although the issue is merely a tiny retaining clip, the unit is sealed and there aren’t many BMW dealerships open at 4am. But give these boys some duct tape and chicken wire, and they’ll build you a light aircraft. British ingenuity at its finest.
VW Racing Austria’s class D1 Golf is now well in front, but has also pitted with mechanical problems.
07:03
A cool, clear dawn breaks over Dubai.
Two hours kip to stay fresh for my last stint. I open my eyes to discover we are firmly ensconced in 59th place, but 19 laps behind the mechanically troubled VW in P3. Wouldn’t it be phenomenal to give a factory team a bloody nose?
10:37
I’m flying. I want to push push push, just in case the VW breaks down ahead of us. The tracking has been sorted, the clutch is holding up, the tyres are evenly scrubbed, the car is dancing from kerb to kerb and I’ve found my rhythm, my flow.
Reflex action takes over from conscious thought, and I find myself unrestricted, my cognitive functions bypassed. With no deliberate thought to my actions, and little memory of cause and effect, I’m tapping into the Zone, that special place of innate instinct where once in a lifetime even mere mortals become servants of the moment, looking down on themselves.
Apex apex apex apex. In the blur of laps, somehow I dip into a 2min 34sec which proves to be this car’s fastest lap.
The diminutive Beemer is a delightful little car and I’m rapidly growing quite fond of it. It settles gorgeously into the long left handed on-camber bowl onto the back straight, superbly neutral and pulling at least as many lateral g’s as my Porsche Cup, yet allowing me much greater liberty to play with throttle and gearchange through the corner. Its four slick tyres scrub evenly, entering the apex with a gentle chup-chup-chup as they skip across the asphalt, signifying we’re on the edge of a perfect four wheel drift.
But there’s trouble ahead. On turn two, my engine cuts out as if starved of fuel, and I coast to a standstill by the barrier. Arse. Back in the pits, the car starts immediately. “Just one of those things,” smiles Paul, though I’m beginning to think I’m some kind of jinx on this car.
We’re P4 and 57th overall. There is a buzz in our pit garage as crew and well wishers gather around the giant screen watching our progress, lap by lap, sector by sector.
12:40
The number 131 Golf of VW Racing Austria has stopped on the circuit and is towed in. A glance under the bonnet and it’s rolling again. Shoot. It looks like we will not make the podium after all.
12:48
Number 131 is back in! Chris is out there for us, reeling in the Golf lap by lap, but is it too late? If 131 stays in the pits, and we bang out consistent lap times, this can still be done.
13:09
T minus 51 minutes. Number 131 has still not left. Gareth C has sneaked a crafty look at the Golf, and reports back that there is oil everywhere. It’s looking terminal for them and as we huddle around the screen, our expectations are rising.
“We just got to keep it on the island,” said Chris at the start of the race. And that’s just what he needs to focus on right now, and who better to have sitting in the driver’s seat right now than a two times national karting champion. He’s on it. 2min 36sec lap after lap.
13:30
Catastrophe. A Code 60 as one of the Astons makes a last effort lunge for the line and crashes out. There is a wail of anguish from our pit. We’ve lost. There’s nothing we can do but perambulate for the next few minutes until the debris is cleared.
VW Racing send their car out again, reasoning that for a car to be in the points, it must complete the race. It is crawling and spewing oil everywhere, but still several laps ahead of us. Unknown to us, they’ve also instructed their leading car (sitting in P1) to block us in the closing laps if the Code 60 ends.
13:40
Green flag restart. The final push. At 2min 30sec a lap, we could overhaul our six lap deficit, but that is way beyond the ability of this little car. Chris doesn’t care. He’s going to drive like he stole it.
a2b driver Chris Wishart brings home the Beemer
13:42
Flat tyre. Must have been some debris from the crashed Aston. You’ve gotta laugh, right? Chris rolls in, and the crew do the necessary, but it’s hopeless now. Let’s just get out there and bring it home.
14:00
The chequered flag is out, and stark realisation dawns on us: Chris is marginally in front of the winning Z4 so we have another lap to go! Our calculations were off by one lap…
Last lap: the entire pit garage crowds the screen. You really couldn’t have scripted this. Sector 1: Golf in front. Sector 2: it’s neck and neck. Sector 3: wait for it….
Over to Chris:
“I caught up to their lead car, he hit the brakes on the start/finish line, then moved over to the inside. I had a very fast GT3 Benz right up my chuff. This fool [the VW] then moves over only to find a silver missile driving right over the top of him. A number of times he then cuts corners on all four wheels just to keep us behind him.”
In the excitement, Chris is unaware that he’s passed the stricken third placed Golf and parks up after the chequered flag. The team is screaming and hugging each other on the pit wall but Chris is crouching forlornly by his car a hundred yards away.
“I had to sit down for a minute to think and try to compose my apology for failing [you] when it mattered most.”
Then realisation dawns on him that his herculean effort actually paid off and for a brief moment, I think the emotion will be too much for him. An Aussie blubbing in front of half a dozen Brits would be a terrible sight, so thankfully he holds it all together and we make our way to the podium.
“We may never have another day like this,” says Paul, who has himself enjoyed considerable success in the UAE GT Championship. “We could compete for 70 years, and never have all the right factors come together at one time to achieve something like this.” This could be the best it ever gets.
Indeed it gets better, as we discover VW Racing’s leading Golf is disqualified for their dangerous antics on the last lap.
It may not quite have the same cachet as “second at Le Mans”, but I’ll tell my grandchildren anyway: I was second at Dubai.
a2b drivers take it all in after a stunning performance to take second in class
Acknowledgements:
With many thanks to the A2B pit crew and their families for their tireless efforts and support, especially Gareth B and C, Lloyd, Konar and Nick, and the boys from Alex Renner Motors. And not forgetting FibraFoil for dressing us like pros…
