25-Hours of Thunderhill - what a race!!

brucebe

brucebe

Philosopher
Mark McClure and I would like to thank everyone in the Conference community for their support and enthusiasm for our performance at this race! In addition to taking the third place overall trophy, the team also won an award for the highest placed car at under 2.0 liters! Given the half-million dollars or more of equipment and resource in the two cup-car teams in front of us, our team could not have imagined a better result.

The car had *no* unscheduled pit-stops, with a total of 26:57 of pit-stop time over the duration of the race. The crew managed to deal with several mechanical issues during these pit-stops, including the installation of a completely new lighting package on a spare nose! And their last 4-tire stop was their quickest of the event! For the last 7-hours of the race, a failing front wheel bearing was causing piston knock-back in the front brakes - they needed to be pumped up before every corner. The starter also failed with about 8-10 hours to go. Thankfully, the drivers did not stall the car either in the pits or out on track.

This was a 100% NW effort, with Conference drivers and crew. Here was the lineup:

Drivers:
Bruce Beachman
Darren Dilley
Mark McClure
Jeff Remfert

Crew:
Eric Krause
Aaron Nauman
Mark Hanken
Scott Hanken
Jeff Hanken
Mike McClure
Howard Kwong
Kirk Koontz
Gord Houghton
Mark Cockle
Jeff Schneider

There are so many more details - a lot can happen in 25-hours. Mark's brother Mike maintained a blog: http://beachman-mcclureracing.blogspot.com/ , and he'll be adding more photos and info to fill out some of the details.

Thanks again to everyone for their enthusiasm and support!

-Bruce
 
Awesome job you guys followed the race on the live scoring.
Congrats to all the NW drivers and crew.
Well done.
 
Great job and a good showing of what Conference drivers and do. Congratulations.

brucebe said:
.....The starter also failed with about 8-10 hours to go. Thankfully, the drivers did not stall the car either in the pits or out on track.

This was a 100% NW effort, with Conference drivers and crew. Here was the lineup:
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Question:
You're allowed to refuel with the engine running in the hot pits??
 
i have a video link that i could put on here just not sure if we're allowed to. it has lots of cars passing us (my team) and our second driver is quite excited to get out there and race. its 13 and a half mins long. never mind you have to have a facebook account maybe when i get the video i can post it somewhere
 
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Manfred Duske said:
Great job guys! Outstanding effort from your entire team. You drove a great race. Here is a photo of you passing us.....again.... View attachment 318
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Thanks Manfred. When the Z was running, it was very capably driven - impressive mid-corner grip as well.

Thanks to Bob for keeping the car mostly off line when the engine let go.

-Bruce
 
the_driver said:
i have a video link that i could put on here just not sure if we're allowed to. it has lots of cars passing us (my team) and our second driver is quite excited to get out there and race. its 13 and a half mins long. never mind you have to have a facebook account maybe when i get the video i can post it somewhere
Click to expand...

Can't host it here, but you certainly should link to it. Vimeo and (of course) YouTube are options.
 
Go ahead you can call me out by name for my potty mouth! Funny I can work all week with clients and not curse once but for some reason at the track it just flew out all weekend.

I can up that video to vimeo too so others can see.

We had a great time indeed and it was a blast hanging with other Conference folks and getting to know them better. Glad the C-Note team overcame the early obstacles to turn out some laps and finish the 25 hour. I definitely look forward to participating again in the future! Perhaps with a cleaner vocabulary!
 
Eric- You looked comfortable even with the faster traffic. As is I'm already thinking about next years Conference schedule but this gets me even more excited. My only suggestion to you would be to hunt down the track managers and see if they could widen the track in just a few areas so you could run at your full potential. Keep up the good work and hope to see you next year.
 
usm34me said:
Bruce, can't imagine the wind chill factor in the Caterham. Nice effort!
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Thanks Lou - the car keeps you working, but nonetheless, it was COLD. I had the graveyard stint, from about 5:30am until about 8am. I grabbed a shower at the hotel beforehand, and driving over it showed 23deg in the truck. It was up to 26 degrees in the paddock. We were all wearing double nomex shirts, and an over-shirt underneath our driver suits. And, believe me, you made sure that your collar was tight, balaclava tucked-in, and *all* ports on the helmet sealed.

-Bruce
 
Bruce, Darren, Mark and Jeff, and your whole crew,
A huge congratulations! What a great drive you all had! I am very proud to be able to race with you guys and to call you my friends. I spent 5+ dark hours and a little less than 1 light hour in Manfred's Z, and you looked great from start to finish. Your podium finish is a true testament to the heart, soul and guts of the grassroots racer. Great job!
Mike
 
michael_conatore said:
Bruce, Darren, Mark and Jeff, and your whole crew,
A huge congratulations! What a great drive you all had! I am very proud to be able to race with you guys and to call you my friends. I spent 5+ dark hours and a little less than 1 light hour in Manfred's Z, and you looked great from start to finish. Your podium finish is a true testament to the heart, soul and guts of the grassroots racer. Great job!
Mike
Click to expand...

Thanks for the kind words, Mike!

-Bruce
 
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