NWLMRA 6Hr Endurance Race
Race Report from the NWLMRA 6Hr Endurance Race ~ St.Michael’s,
Oct 12th’03
 Well
where do you begin… What a weekend, a lot of money was
raised during the Saturday night Charity Auction with the
highlight definitely being the NWLMRA logo’d cake. It
didn’t have much monetary value but it bought the highest
price of the night raising a mightily impressive £400!
The final figure for money raised is expected to be around
£1,500. Once the necessary expenses have been taken
out to cover the cost of the field and the bar, then the nominated
charities (Make-A-Wish & NCH) should receive donations
of, hopefully, £500 each
Track layout ~ from the pit lane was a long straight. This
went into a very tight but wide off-camber right hander that
opened into a long straight, before a tight left hander. Next
was the main straight that went on and on and on. This eventually
led to a deceptive left hander that tightened round a telegraph
pole, before a very tight right hander, which opened out through
a flat-out left hander then a short straight before an open
hairpin left. This fed into a tight and long right hander
that went into a short straight. Next up was a very tight
hairpin left, followed by a short straight and an opening
right hander, through a flat out left hander onto the front
straight. At the end of which was a square left, into a very
tight hairpin left, tight right combination in front of the
lap scorer’s. This led back onto the pit straight. Lap
times were around 1min 20seconds for the leading teams around
the 0.5 mile track
On to the racing and the drama started on Saturday with #31
blowing an engine during practice. Luckily a replacement was
arranged and this was fitted in the evening. No other problems
were reported with any other mowers. Sunday practice brought
a few more problems for other mowers with #18 Sheldon Webster
blowing up his engine. He also arranged a replacement and
fitted this but missed the start of the race
 18
crews lined up for the 11.00am le-mans style start with the
mowers on the front straight and the drivers on the pit straight.
The race was started by the Make-A-Wish Bear and they were
off. All the drivers ran across the track and first off the
line was #27 followed by #31. The first couple of laps allowed
some kind of order to settle in and it soon became clear that
#27, #31, #42 and #74 were all running at a pretty similar
pace
Throughout the first hour all four of these teams took turns
at leading the race as small problems fell on their rivals.
The first to have a major problem was #31 and it was another
blown engine while enjoying about a 10 second lead over #42.
Having covered just 28 laps NORTHERNERS KICK grASS were destined
to finish last. Meanwhile, as the first hour drew to a close,
#27, #42, #74 and #28 had all covered 39 laps
The second hour brought no real problems either, as all the
teams settled into their routines and pushed the pace up.
As 1pm approached, the leaders were #27 on 82 laps, with #74
on 81 laps and #42 on 80 laps. #26 blew an engine in the third
hour and #27 suffered throttle problems with what eventually
turned out to be the choke sticking on. This cost the team
some time and at half distance the positions were #74 leading
on 125 laps, #42 was 2nd on 124 laps and #27 down to 3rd on
121 laps
 Into
the fourth hour and small problems for #42 and #74 allowed
the #27 to claw back a couple of laps. At 3pm the leading
positions were #74 still leading on 166 laps, #27 up to 2nd
on 164 laps and #42 in 3rd on 163 laps
The fifth hour brought yet more drama as #74 had a broken
throttle cable, and #27 ran into puncture problems. #42 was
still going strong though and pulled back some of the time
lost in the previous hour. So, with one hour to go, the standings
were now #42 leading on 208 laps, closely followed by #74,
also on 208 laps. #27 had fallen back to third and was now
6 laps behind. Worse still for the team was that #3 was on
the same lap and had suffered no problems during the race
#42 and #74 both pushed really hard in the final hour and
both teams deserved the win, but #42 held out to win by about
half a lap from #74. Both teams covered 254 laps. #27 held
on to 3rd place albeit on the same lap as #3. The gap at the
flag was only a handful of seconds
The results were: ~
1st #42 Kiss My Grass Racing 254 laps
2nd #74 The Burning Helmets 254 laps
3rd #27 Stuart Polkinghorne 246 laps
4th #3 Nettlebed Vehicle Dept 246 laps
5th #28 Touching Cloth Racing 243 laps
6th #69 The “69”ers 240 laps
7th #9 The Champion Dung Spreaders 237 laps
8th #8 Green Stripe 225 laps
9th #24 Dave Smith 215 laps
10th #73 Cutting Crew 214 laps
11th #89 Southern Softies 207 laps
12th #86 The Tango Squirts 202 laps
13th #12 NP2 193 laps
14th #50 Phil Brooks 189 laps
15th #18 RGM 131 laps
16th #26 Robert Smith 92 laps
17th #67 The Slow Mows 83 laps
18th #33 Turf Accountant 54 laps
19th #31 NORTHERNERS KICK grASS 29 laps
|