After Round 2 of the 750MC Club Enduro Championship at Croft, we decided that the TT would not be going to Spa for the next round, as it is too far to go for it to be unreliable, and there is not really much hope with the championship now. The Golf was still good to go, but the costs for us to get just 1 car there, with all the team was going to be too much. We needed to make another plan. In the meantime we were at Snetterton for the Turismo-X Racing Championship, and had some gearbox troubles with that as well, so we dodged a bullet! There was only 2 working days between Snet and setting off to Spa, so the guys would have been working double hard to get it ready in time.

We have been battling with the Area Motorsport Golfs at both rounds, so when we found out that Chris Freeman was not going to Spa, and his car would be available, we sorted a deal with Rob to jump in that. As a bonus, as the car is the same class as our Golf, if we had a good result, we would score championship points just the same as if we were in our own car.

The format for this weekend is different to most other of the ClubEnduro events, there is 2 x 100 minute races, one on the Friday, one on the Saturday, with a 60 minute qualifying on the Friday morning. This was all going on at the same time as the FunCup 25hr that starts on the Saturday at 4pm.

A layout of the Spa Circuit is below. This track has so many differences to anything in the UK. There are loads of high speed corners, elevation changes, compressions and long straights. It really is a challenge to string together a good lap.
I've not been here since a wet trackday in the KTM back in 2018 and half a day in the A5 back in 2019 when it was about a million degrees at Easter. Ryan had never set foot in the circuit, so we had some catching up to do with the guys that raced here last year.

The Golf would be running in Class B the same as ours, which is 240bhp/tonne without the driver.
For timing at this round they would be using RIS-Timing.

Full Race Day Vlog

We have a full Vlog from the weekend, with snippets of the race:

There are quite a few different ways for us to get to Spa. The quickest overall is to drive from HQ to Dover, get the Ferry or Tunnel, then drive from Calais to Spa. The issue with that is you have ~4.5-6hrs on the UK side, depending on traffic, 30 minutes on the tunnel or a few hours on the Ferry, then another 3.5-4.5hrs from France to Spa in Belgium. So at least 8 hours of driving. We prefer the Hull to Rotterdam Ferry as it is just over an hour from us, you sleep overnight and then around 2.5hrs to Spa once you land in Holland. You arrive at the track much fresher for sure than an 8 hour driving trip!
Everything went smoothly, and we were in Spa town for lunchtime and went in search of waffles!

Testing

For most of the race weekends this year, we have avoided testing. It adds a lot of expense with the extra day away, and we don't find test days are good for actually testing the car, they only really work to get you dialled in to the circuit for that weekend. However being a completely unfamiliar car and circuit for us both, we figured we should have a go this time.
The issue we faced immediately would be familiar to anyone who visits Spa - the weather. The forecast was 22c+ and sun all weekend, except on the test day, where it decided it was going to rain all day. Even when it stopped and seemed to start drying, just as we got ready to go back out after the many Red flags in the session, it would rain again.
As I already had a good idea where the track went, I left Ryan in the car as long as possible, since we were not learning anything about the car on this track specifically that would translate into usable data for the next few days.

Qualifying

As the forecast predicted, it was like being at a completely different track on the Friday, not a cloud in the sky and perfectly dry.
The plan was for me to go out, set a decent lap for Ryan to chase, then he could see where he needed to push. I did a 2:49.82 on my 3rd flying lap and decided that was a decent place for Ryan to get to grips with the track. Whilst it is just over 7km long, with 60 cars of varying speeds trying to put a lap together at the same time, getting a clean lap was always going to be difficult!
Ryan did really well considering his lack of familiarity, eventually doing a 2:50.79 before coming back in to give me a chance of bumping us a bit further up the grid. My first flying lap out I was well up on my time, after being held up at the start of the lap I made up loads of time at the Chicane. It was still not enough, we had to settle for a 2:48.54. Without the holdup I think we could have done a 2:47.xx, not sure if we could have beat the 2:47.510 that Luke Handley did in the other Area Golf, or the 2:47.881 that Jon Packer did in the 3rd car. We would have been nowhere near the 1:45.049 of the Rob Boston Elise, which was in a league of it's own!
We settled for 4th in class!

For some reason our car was not showing on the Live Timing during the Quali session, most likely to be because of a transponder issue, so this means we don't have any sector analysis for that session.

Qualifying Laps

Our 'fastest' laps are shown below:

Race 1

With two races this weekend, I was starting in Race 1, and the results would then determine the starting positions for Race 2. The 2nd race was where the podiums and championship points would be decided. The way to look at it was a 200 minute race with a big safety car period!
The starts in this series are 2x2 rolling and this would be the same for both races. Race 1 we had 2 separate grids, us and the BGDC split with a 1 minute gap and race 2 we were just all mixed up, so that was going to be interesting!

I was confident we could get closer to the other Area Golfs during the race, and I figured they would be the guys I needed to beat. The Elise was going to be too far up the road, but previous ClubEnduro experience has shown them to be less reliable that the drivers would hope.
My start was pretty even compared to everyone else, but my plan had always been to stay away from the inside line into turn 1. Everyone is tempted to defend there, but the hairpin is so tight, the track falls from under the car, and then you have to carry the speed down two very long straights. As predicted, a traffic jam formed at the apex, and I drove around 6 cars, including the 3 others in my class. P4 to P1 in class in 1 corner. Easy enough!
Luke Handley in the green 51 Golf followed me through, and most of my race I was just maintaining the gap whilst managing the coolant and oil temperatures, which seemed to creep up when you were behind back markers (or stealing a cheeky tow from overtaking cars).
With just less than 50 minutes elapsed, the Safety car came out. At first it looked like it was going to play into my hands, as I had a clear track with only higher classed cars in front, and we were making good progress towards the pits, but as we entered Campus, 5 corners from the pit entry, the train was crawling round. Luke and all the other cars behind were now right on my tail, so the safety buffer I had build for Ryan was gone! I trundled into the pits at 60kph ready to hand over to Ryan.

Ryan was immediately on pace, but the 50 minutes extra experience meant that a few laps later, Jon Packer in the blue Area Golf managed to outbrake him, dropping us to P2 in class.
It looked like this was where he would stay, as Luke, due to his win at Croft, had a 30s pitstop penalty to serve, which would have been way too much time to make up under normal circumstances. However, with not too long to go, another Safety Car put Luke right on Ryan's bumper. At the restart, Luke had an advantage as the SC boards were withdrawn and Green Flags waved just as he went past the post, Luke saw it and made a move! Ryan tried to take the place back at the chicane, but cold brakes meant his pedal went super long and he nearly collected Luke, shooting through a Golf sized gap.
Traffic didn't help, and Ryan seemed to loose out more than Luke in front and the Ginetta closing in behind. With 2 laps to go, the Ginetta made a move and a battle lasting for the full 7km lap ensued, the lightweight but low powered machine clearly at an advantage in the high speed sections. As they finished the penultimate lap, Ryan made a great move down the inside at the chicane then kept ahead for the last lap to bring the car home in 3rd. As expected, the two Area Golfs were our competition.
Unbeknown to us, the super fast Elise of Rob Boston was involved in a pretty bad tangle with the Cayman of Steve Hewson on lap one, just as all the cars bunched up at Les Combes. This put the Cayman out of the race, and the Elise into the pits for emergency repairs, losing them a lot of time on the road.

The gap between Ryan and Luke at the end was only 1.8s. Jon was way up the road as Spa uses two safety cars due to the length, and he managed to sneak into the other train, which put him half a lap ahead of Ryan and Luke.

The sector times from the race shows our car (212) was ahead of the 5 and 51 Golfs in sector 1, Jon was slightly faster in sector 2 then we were a decent amount ahead in sector 3. However we had not strung together a good lap, so whilst out ideal was a fair bit quicker than both, the actual was slower. Must try harder for race 2!

A breakdown of the top 3 Class B finishers laps are below. These are Jon Packer's in the 5 blue car:

Then Luke Handley's in the 51 green car:

Then our Car. You can see Ryan set the fastest first sector within a few laps of jumping in, but was losing time in sectors 2 and 3.

The data below is every lap through the race, so you can see where time was gained and lost relative to the other cars:

Race 2

As explained earlier, the grid for this race would be mixed with all the BGDC cars, which was going to make for an interesting turn 1 (or Les Combes as the previous race proved).
Ryan was starting and hopefully we could time the stints to give us another even 50% of the race each, but that would depend on safety cars of course!

The start and first few laps were pretty even, with Jon staying in the lead, Luke in 2nd and Ryan just behind. The gap was flowing up and down. We were nervously watching the timing screen from the pitlane and could see just how close the sector times were between all 3, with a tenth or two between them every lap.
Around 20 minutes in the safety car was back out and bunched them back up. After the restart, it was back to business as usual, with the three Area Golfs trading best sectors and laps whilst carving through the traffic.
A couple of occasions Ryan slipped back when losing time passing or being passed, but he caught back up.
Eventually someone had to crack, and Jon outbraked himself into the chicane after being pressured by Luke, and this allowed Ryan through as well. He had been on Yokohama A052 Tyres for Race 1, but being in short supply, he had to settle for Direzzas in Race 2. The Dunlops seemed to drop off quicker than Yokos so it was only a matter of time before Luke and Ryan reeled him back in.
Ryan and Luke had a great battle but he seemed to gain a bit through traffic. We were now waiting for a safety car to get Ryan out and me in, but with the other 2 Area cars on the same strategy, but with single driver entries, they were happy to go right to the 15 minute limit. Not good for my driving time and Ryan was not mad keen on being in the car for so long in these temperatures!
Eventually, with around 20 minutes of the race left, the safety car was out and Ryan came in, along with Jon, to serve the mandatory 3 minute stop and had the reins over to me.

My outlap was pretty shocking, on the pit exit the Traction control was still on which hurt me all the way down the straight as I messed around turning it off. The rest of the lap was not too clever really either, I probably lost ~4s to Ryan's best time. With Luke pitting a lap later, he had the jump on me, and when I came round the next lap to the pit exit, he was already way up the Kemmel Straight.
Another safety car a lap later brought us closer, but there was 8 cars between us, and with the clock ticking down, it looked like 1 maybe 2 laps at best to catch up, it was not going to happen. I also had Jon 3 cars back to worry about, but he was in the same situation as me.
At the restart, I could see Luke pulling away while I was stuck behind a few cars that did not seem in any sort of rush (they were not battling for position) so we had to settle for P2. Worse things have happened!

This time Luke was slightly quicker than us in sector 1, we were slightly ahead of Jon in sector 2 and we were a decent way ahead in sector 3, however again the guys both strung together better single laps.

These are Luke's laps:

Ours are below, you can see lap 28 when I got into sector 2, I lost over 4s to Ryan's time. My sector 3 was closer to his best so I needed to push more on the first part of the outlap.

Jon's laps are below, you can see how his pace dropped into the 2:50s after lap 12.

All our race laps are below:

The full Race 2 video is shown below:

Fastest Laps

Our fastest race laps are below:

It seems that we are not destined to win a ClubEnduro race, in our car or someone else's! We had the pace to do it but safety cars and traffic were our downfall this weekend.
The Guys at Area Motorsport gave us a great car and did a brilliant job of running it all weekend. It just showed, with the 3 Golfs in the top spots for both races, and their Cupra TCR winning Class A as well, by a significant margin. It also gave the Belgian TCRs a run for their money, and they were all on slicks!
The Result puts us P4 in the championship, but tied with Chris Plaskett in P3 with a dropped score. I am 4 points down on Jon and 9 from Luke, so it is going to be hard to get to the sharp end before the end of the season, but we will give it a good try!

FunCup

When we were sent the timetable for the weekend, we saw that the 25hr FunCup race was on the same weekend. We had previously sponsored the S&G Race Team when they ran the TDI Evo 2 models, which featured a 1.9 TDI PD Engine (mapped to produce 165bhp) and 5 speed manual Gearbox from a VW Passat.
The later models, the Evo 3, are a 2.0 FSI engine with 180bhp and a 5 Speed sequential paddle shift box. More details can be found on the W-RacingTeam website, who are now the exclusive manufacturer of the cars.
The 25 Hours at Spa, is one of the longest continuous motor races in the world, and regularly has over 120 cars on the grid. We thought it would be rude not to have a go! A quick email to Simon at SGRT and we were in! They sorted us a good deal for all the help we gave when they ran the diesel models (some of which still race, but are not as competitive due to the lower power and manual gearbox).

However with a week to go, Simon had some bad news. Two of the other drivers had dropped out, and he was struggling to fill the seat. He recommended we have a look for another team whilst he did some searching for some more drivers. He very kindly passed me on to his friend Jean who had space available in one of his cars, but when he found out we were interested in having a good result (instead of just being there to make up the numbers), he suggested we try another team as his guys were gentleman racers there for a good time.
Team MILO had space available in a car with two very experienced drivers in FunCup who had been at the sharp end in the shorter races earlier in the season, so it sounded like a perfect fit. We knew the chances of us rocking up to a track we'd never raced at, in a car we had never driven, and getting on the podium was going to be slim, but we do not want to go knowing we had no chance at all. We were set to race in the 403 Car.

The timetable meant we were running between the ClubEnduro paddock and FunCup garages all day Friday and Saturday, but once the second Golf Race was done, we could say bye to the Area guys and concentrate on the FunCup.
When we met the guys in our team, we were told a 5th driver had joined at the last minute, another with a lot of experience in these cars. It was going to be a busy time getting used to the car!
There was a 1.5hr qualifying session Friday morning, followed by a 2.5hr practice on the evening. The practice times would not count towards the grid result, but were enough to meet the FIA 3 lap rule for qualification to drive. We all agreed that the other guys would go in the car and set a benchmark, then me and Ryan would do a few laps in Quali to get a feel for the car, then come back after our first ClubEnduro race to spend more time in the car during practice. It did not work out that way, the car seemed to be miles off the pace, and did not feel good, so the guys were chasing the setup during qualifying. They had predicted a top 30 qualifying time, and we were actually in 60th!

The best time Alex could do was a 2:59.439, whereas the top 2 were separated by 0.003s, with Pole being 2:54.622. Most of the cars were in the 2:55s or 2:56s, so we were still a good 3-4s off the front runners, and 2s off P30!
With them chasing the setup, we didn't get any time in the car during the quali session, so agreed with the guys that we would get a decent amount in the car at the start of the practice session later on.
After the ClubEnduro race, we headed back to the F1 garages to start practice, and found that one of the other guys was already in the car waiting to go. An hour was wasted making setup changes, doing a few laps, coming back in etc, so I got out with around 1.5hrs to go. I had to refuel on the way out, which took 2 - 3 minutes, then I was out on track for the first time in a FunCup! The car felt terrible with no rear grip at all. In the slow speed corners it wanted to swap ends immediately, and in the high speed stuff, you had no confidence to push. I was told they were difficult to drive a FunCup, but this was not what I expected!
I did 3 flying laps, then a Red Flag brought us all back into the pits. The guys had said Ryan was going our next, so I jumped out to let him in. They had decided to send someone else out to try and fix the oversteer issue. Eventually there was only less than 30 minutes of the session left, and Ryan had still not sat in the car. He finally got out and managed to do 5 flying laps before the end of the session was called. He had the same feeling as me, and the other guys confirmed it was not handling how they would expect.

We were not particularly happy to have had so little time in the car, out of 4 hours of pre-race track time, we had been in the car for 3 and 5 flying laps. Not ideal going into a race with over 100 cars on track, probably 90% of which would be lapping quicker than me and Ryan until we got into the swing of things.
The team assured us the car would be much better for the race.

To summarise the race, we were on the back foot from the start. Franck started then I jumped in for the second stint. On lap 1, the lead MILO car 280 that had qualified 2nd overall was involved in an incident at Turn 5 and 6 (Les Combes) which put them out of the race. They must have been gutted!
We had dropped to P66 before Franck pitted. During my stint I got us back to the 50s, most likely through about 10 people dropping into the gravel rather than through sheer pace. The car was still not perfect, the rear still giving no confidence. Jurgen was next, then Ryan and then Alex. They made some dramatic changes to the tyre pressures before Jurgen went out, and he said the car felt much better than before, but the strategy the team employed was not great (we did most of our stops under green flag) so we tumbled down the order.
At 1am it was time for my 2nd stint, and it seemed to be going well until the car started to misfire and slow right down. We lost ~30 minutes in the pits as the W-RT guys struggled to diagnose the fault. I looked at the data and saw some weird RPM readings, so suggested a Crank and Cam sensor. They just changed the crank sensor and sent me out. It seemed to be fixed for another 17 laps, but then the issue occurred again. We lost another 38 minutes in the pits as they changed other parts and sent Jurgen out, again the problem was not fixed.
While I was sleeping, and Ryan was waiting to get in the car, they changed the full engine wiring loom, losing us another 26 minutes but it seemed to fix the issue and the car didn't skip a beat the rest of the race.

The night time antics meant we had no chance of a decent result, so we just enjoyed the battles we had with the other cars, and did our best to stay out of trouble, which on a grid of over 100 cars is hard work! Especially when some drivers fought for every place like it was the last lap and they were in for the win!
I did an extra stint as Franck said he was done, then Alex was in for what he described as the most dangerous part of the race - the last hour. His prediction was correct, as with only 20 minutes to go, a car in front dropped all it's coolant at Turn 9, and Alex slithered off into the gravel and then the barrier, right in front of the Live Stream cameras. Luckily he was not hurt, and the damage not too bad, but the suspension was broken so he could not get back to the pits and had to be recovered. What a sad end to a disappointing race!
We were P81 and 51 laps behind the leaders.

The analysis broke down the best laps and average of your best 10 and 20 laps during the race. As expected, Alex did a lap that was 1.2s quicker than my best, and his average 10 was also 1.2s quicker and average 20 just over 1s quicker. However I was pleased to be the 2nd quickest driver in our car, considering the amount of experience the other guys had. It just showed how well matched our team was, with Ryan, even though he was 5th out of 5, very close to us all. If we had been given a car that could win and we had no mechanical issues, I am sure we would have been well up there. Other than Alex's incident right at the end, we had kept out of trouble on track.

All our laps are below, with a colour coding for each driver in their stints. You can see the super long laps where we lost so much time in the night while the team worked on on the car.
It was over 1.5hrs, so around 30 laps. Just not losing this time alone would have put up in the top 40! Then with Ale's crash we lost ~20 minutes, so at least another 5 or 6 laps, so we might have been in the top 30.
I had completed 101 laps during the race and Ryan did 75.

Photos courtesy of Kiiwix Photographie and Battesti Photography

All the details and dates for future races we are entering can be found on the Darkside Motorsport Page.