American racers @ the Ring (from left to right: Bruce Ledoux, Charles Esplenaub, Charlie Putnam, David Quinlan & Brett Sandberg)
It was 10:35am and the car was getting delivered to grid in 15 minutes. The previous 2 days of driving had offered the full spectrum of experience in full Nurburgring fashion. It was cold, hot, sunny, windy, POURING rain and then pitch black dark (and rain – bonus round). The Matechsport.com car hadn’t missed a beat. It was great. The race was to be far more of a global draw than we anticipated. 10 garage bays down we found our Continental Challege & Rolex friends enjoying the same enthusiasm, excitement and favorable exchange rate. 🙂
We were in a class of four cars two of which are exactly the same as our BMW e90 325 – so there was reasonable competition. As we walked down the clock to faster & faster lap times, the use of our AIM data allowed us to find some easy upticks and co-driver David Quinlan qualified us on the pole position some 14 seconds ahead of the competition!!
We were thrilled to be starting from Pole Position in class and have ‘Ring Meister Q taking the green flag. One set back we didn’t expect was that our 3rd driver – Ring local Kurt Strube – was snagged by the new licensing process and not allowed to drive the race with #TEAMGAM. This was a disappointment to say the least, but also a scary variable. It meant that Q & I would have to split the 6hrs of racing in a hot car on a complicated track. A herniated disc has led me to a sciatica challenge to beat the band. The upshot is that my cardio is not what it normally is. I was worried that my 3rd shift may find me tired leading to either a mistake or slow lap times. It would be a shame to give away a potential win like that. We focused hard on diet, hydration and rest for days in preparation.
Ultimately the race found us in a battle for P1 for only about one hour. The fast car’s remaining driver line up was minutes behind Q & I culminating with our pulling into Parc Ferme at the end of the race RIGHT NEXT to P2 in our class. It may have taken the ENTIRE race, right down to the last 100 ft, but we ultimately lapped our competition. See the grey #184 car parked next to our #186 entry
We felt like heroes as a lap is over 10 minutes!
This upcoming weekend brings the 24hr race with over 220 entries. You can watch the race live (in german) via this link: http://www.24h-rennen.de/24h-live/
We’ll be racing from 11am to 11am Eastern Standard Time in the V4 class, car #186 (pictured here). Live timing & scoring via this really cool iPhone app.
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