2008 News Archive Article \\
Drayson-Barwell Race report - Petit Le Mans, Road Atlanta
9th October 2008
The Drayson-Barwell ALMS team contested the ‘Blue Riband’ event of the season on Saturday, the Petit Le Mans 1000-mile race around the fabulous Road Atlanta track in Georgia. Regular drivers Paul Drayson and Jonny Cocker were joined by works Aston Martin Racing driver, Darren Turner for the 10-hour endurance classic.
Having previously made good progress with the reliability and development of our Aston Martin Vantage GT2 during the August races, we were then able to carry out another two days of team testing at Atlanta on the weekend prior to the race. During these days we worked hard on the management of our Dunlop tyres, and learnt that a slightly scrubbed set of front tyres gave us the best handling balance on the car. We also tried a different specification of front tyre from Dunlop, which was slightly faster but wore out too fast to be a useable race tyre.
During this test Paul and Jonny were also able to learn the track, which is a real challenge even for drivers that have done 1000s of miles around it already! It has huge elevation changes, blind brows leading to the approach to the next corner, and sequence corners that require a lot of thought to get right. And then at the end of a hard lap you have a 135mph steep downhill sweeping right hand bend leading onto the start/finish straight, which can be taken absolutely flat out in 5th gear...but only just! We also programmed in some very useful runs for Paul to practice running on new tyres, and learn better how to bring them up to full working temperature during his first few laps.
The team and drivers then worked hard on improving the overall performance of the car during last week’s test and practice sessions, trying different things in both the mechanical and aerodynamic grip areas. We got through a significant amount of work, and with the car’s reliability significantly improved since the first half of the season we were able to complete our programme. This also allowed us some time to work on a specific Qualifying set-up, for the first time this year, and we made some useful progress in this area as well. By the time the night practice session came round on Thursday evening, we thus were able to start keeping our mileage to a minimum and only did the running necessary to get all three drivers familiar with the night and the lights.
We had high hopes for qualifying on Friday, and were not disappointed as we were in the hunt for one of the spots from sixth place down to 10th (out of the 16 strong GT2 field). We put in our best performance to date, qualifying 8th in GT2 and just over a second off the pole-sitting Ferrari. Only another two 10ths of a second would have put us into sixth.
During the opening stint of the race Jonny put in a great performance to hang on to the GT2 leaders, and some superb strategy calls to use the caution periods from the crew kept us right in the thick of the fight for GT2 top honours. Darren took over the car during a caution period 90 minutes into the race, in 7th spot. With this being a lengthy period behind the safety car, we made a quick call to bring him back in soon after to top up with fuel. In doing so, when most of our competitors did the same thing afterwards it meant that we leapfrogged them in the running order.
When the race went ‘green’ again, this move and earlier strategy calls really paid dividends as other teams made their pit stops under ‘green’ racing conditions. He reached a peak of 3rd position behind the leading Porsche and Ferrari, holding our challengers at bay with a full tank of fuel to boot. Thus, after three hours we were genuine contenders for a podium place, but then suffered our first setback of the afternoon. One of the upper bonnet pins (all new for the race) had sheared off and the bonnet was starting to flap up. We were thus forced to make our first pit stop of the afternoon under full ‘green’ racing conditions, and taped down the bonnet as well as refuel and retyre the car.
This unscheduled stop had dropped us off the lead GT2 lap, but we were still in a solid seventh position. Paul then kept up the good work during his stint, keeping us in the hunt for a good point-paying finish. We were then also able to pit him under the safety car, again taking advantage of the ‘wave by’, and he handed the car back to Jonny. Jonny duly reeled off another solid stint, which was trouble-free, with the car running fast and well. As the race went into its second half with over five hours gone, we were now running in 7th place and were locked in a four-way battle for sixth place with the #44 Flying Lizard Porsche, the #61 Risi Ferrari and the #99 JMB Ferrari. By this stage we were also the only non-Porsche/Ferrari to still be in the hunt for top placings, having outpaced and outlasted the Panoz, Ford GTs, Dodge Viper and GT2 Corvette.
We then suffered some misfortune as a fractured pipe on the air conditioning system during Darren’s next stint meant we had to make an unscheduled stop. This dropped us down to 8th in GT2, but the pace of the car was still sufficient to keep us in the hunt for 6th place. After six and a half hours (and now into new territory for continuous running for the Vantage GT2) Jonny took over again, and rejoined the same battle. Both Jonny and Darren were reeling off fast and consistent laps, and the fight with the Porsche and Ferraris then became a battle for fifth place after the demise of the #87 Farnbacher Porsche in the eighth hour of the race.
As darkness fell and the race approached its 9th hour, Jonny came into the pits for his scheduled stop and handed back to Darren. The atmosphere around the track was electric, and we really then got the sensation that we were involved in the thick of the action of one of the world’s greatest GT/sportscar endurance events. Shortly after Darren took over, the #61 Risi Ferrari pitted and we moved up to sixth place in GT2, but then our dreams were shattered sadly when he came on the radio to report that he had lost all drive and was stranded at the far part of the track. Despite the pit crew radioing to Darren to try different things to get the car moving and limp back to the pits, nothing was working out and our race was run. The cause was later confirmed to be a broken driveshaft/output shaft – aided by the harsh kerbs around the Road Atlanta track. This was the first time we have had such a failure all season. We had completed enough distance to be classified ninth, however, and thus claim some precious championship points as well as a 10-point bonus for being classified at Petit Le Mans.
All in all however, it had been a great showing with the still relatively new Vantage, and had taken the car into new territory in terms of distance run. The car has now shown enough potential that, with a little more development, it could be a true contender for GT2 honours at the Le Mans 24 Hours.
One of the big success stories for the team, however, came in the form of achieving 2nd place behind the factory Corvette GT1 in the inaugural Green Challenge. This was a competition including the entire ALMS field – a race-within-a-race in which all cars were scored on overall performance, fuel efficiency and environmental impact. This important result was achieved through a combination of good pace and the use of environmentally-friendly ‘2nd Generation’ E85 bio-ethanol fuel.
