The Circuit de Catalunya was built in 1991 and is often referred to as 'Barcelona' in the racing community, despite the fact that it is located in Montmeló. The Circuit de Catalunya should not be confused with the Montjuïc circuit, which hosted the Spanish Grand Prix four times between 1969 and 1975 and, unlike the Circuit de Catalunya, actually is located within the city of Barcelona.
The circuit is the home of some incredible and memorable moments. During the 1991 Spanish Grand Prix drivers Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell went down the entire front straight side-by-side while dueling for second place, Mansell eventually taking the position and ultimately the race itself. In the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix Michael Schumacher managed to finish in second place despite driving over half the race with only fifth gear. Two years later, in the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix Schumacher took his first win as a member of the Ferrari team after a dominant performance during a rainstorm. The 1999 Spanish Grand Prix was notable as there was only one reported overtaking move during the race. In the 2001 Spanish Grand Prix Mika Häkkinen suffered a clutch failure while leading the race on the last lap, handing the win to Schumacher. At the 2006 Spanish Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso became the first Spanish Formula One driver to win at his home country's track.
When this track was first used, overtaking was frequent as cars could follow closely through the last two corners and slipstream down the long straight. As aerodynamic balance became more critical, and defined in the design and building of cars this overtaking method ceased as the cars were unable to follow each other through the fast final corner due to turbulence created by the leading car. This made it almost impossible for a car to get close enough to the car in front of it to attempt a pass at the first turn, which is the only obvious overtaking point on the circuit. The 2007 F1 Season saw the 1st of the 2 final sweepers replaced with a slow chicane in an effort to improve overtaking. However, the redesign did not noticeably increase the amount of overtaking.
In 2008 Heikki Kovalainen left the track at 240 km/h (149 mph) after a wheel rim failure. He managed to slow his vehicle to 130 km/h (81 mph) prior to hitting the tire barrier. He was unconscious temporarily and recovered a few minutes later with a minor concussion, he gave a thumbs up to the spectators and received a huge cheer of their relief.
Circuit de Catalunya Track Map
As Qualifing came to an end the list of competitors round out as 15 LMP2 cars representing 12 Teams and three makes and 13 GT2 cars representing 9 Teams and four makes. The times were tabulated and checked and double checked and the field was set and announced.
The top three LMP2 qualifiers Ryan von Steinen in the #47 Nexus 6 Racing, Dome S101J, Jakob J. Kristensen in the #22 Northern Light Racing, Dome S101J, and Erik Teske for the #42 Racing For Holland, Dome S101J. If you notice the top six qualifiers share a single car make in common the LM-P2, Dome S101J.
Ryan von Steinen in the #47 Nexus 6 Racing.
In the GT Class three of the Four makes are represented in the top six Qualifiers and here are the top three in the GT2s the driver to get around the 4.655 kilometer circuit the quickest was Ron Caranci in the #70 Caranci's Cobras Racing Ford GT, second and Teammate from the sister car Joe Gomes in the #80 Caranci's Cobras Racing Ford GT, and third quickest was Kenneth Holleufer in the #66 Northern Light Racing Porsche 997 GT3 RSR.
Ron Caranci in the #70 Caranci's Cobras Racing Ford GT.
With the starting grid set and the last of the open practice sessions closed and the teams retire to the pits to make last minute adjustments, and like the Nexus 6 Racing Team a fresh coat of specially formulated polycarbonate wax to make their cars more aero-slippery the teams put the cars to bed with anticipation of another exciting race.
As the sun starting to raise over the horizon the sounds of life started to fill the air. Air compressors and fuel pumps rattling the stillness of the calm, impact wrenches and APUs come to life. The sounds of the growing crowd as the stadium seats begin to fill with the early arrivals. The smells of fresh hot coffee and the sweet aroma of funnel cakes and fresh bread glimmer only shortly as the fumes of exhaust begin to overwhelm the paddock area. Many crew members jog from trailer to trailer collecting last minutes parts and the entourage of Pit Crew Groupies push against the barrier fence in hopes to catch a glimpse of their favorite team members as the war wagons are prepared. Tire men are seen checking air pressures and wrapping the first and second iterations with warming blankets. Several fuel men are seen climbing the gravity feed holding tanks ensuring they have enough fuel for the duration of the race as others check the aircraft style quick connectors on both the hose end and the car body, soon all will be ready.
Jimmi Allison the official ILMS-ERL Grid Girl Wrangler with a large cup of coffee in hand started his frantic task of rounding up of the local group of blonde sign holders for the event. Faced with last minute crisis, like needing to get a handle on finding the baby powder…apparently putting on those pants is like putting on surgical gloves. With that chaos averted the parade of Grid Girls and with traditional Spanish celebratory fanfare with music and the releasing of colorful streamers started a renewed level of activity along the pit road as the race Teams strapped in their first drivers and started off for the grid.
The Grid Girls waiting for the first of the cars to start to stage.
With the Starting Grid set and the last of the team members clear of the track the Safety Car fires up its engine and turns on the lights as a signal that the field will soon start the parade lap. The slow deliberate parade lap around the track allowing the drivers to warm their tires and brakes as team radios are cluttered with last second transmissions. The Safety Car driven by Fernadino Alwayslow a career chartered accountant was happy to accept the invitation that surprised him as well as the race coordinators, due to a minor spelling check error by an unidentified office worker the intended VIP guest driver was not contacted but fortunately Fernadino was available.
Safety Car leading the way.
With the green lights flashing on the race was underway, the thunderous roar performance engines gasping for air as they spin up to top revs, tires scream and smoke from breaking traction and the cheers from the fans combine to become deafening as the drivers pilot their cars position some had better starts than others and they jockey for the line for T1 in the rush of adrenalin a few teams get involved in some minor altercations before entering the second sector.
As the first half of the race developed and the drivers settled in for a long and technical race the fans where treated to the spectacle of great and tight racing all through the field. Where around every turn and in every group of cars there were great door to door battles going on. Several drivers found themselves involved in some racing incidents. Some would suffer minor damage and incidental contact would be exchanged, paint and carbon fiber, sheet metal and suspension, tires and front splitters would all be collected in the finial statistics of the race.
As the race reached halfway, Lap 104 the race leader was Steve Porter in the number 42, and the excitement bar was raised to the next level as the battle for the class top spots became more aggressive.
Curious about the new speed the Red Weasel Racing Team has found out on the track we were able to talk to Mister Jerry Rig, the Car Chief for the number 13 Red Weasel Racing Porsche Spyder. He was happy to volunteer his time to explain some of the new technical adjustments made to the car with the latest Weasel version 2.2 download and installation. He explained the greatest result from the Head Weasel’s research in the Super Ultra Secret Red Weasel Racing Research and Development Center and Hair Care Emporium also known as the SUSRWRRADCAHCE has been the redesigning of the Gimbaled Sparing Plates. We are thrilled at the breakthrough, with this design we can now shift the lateral thrust from the Gimbaled Sparing Plates stabilizing the modulated ferpel bearings which now reduces all the previous requirements for granulized neoprene bushing plugs. This has increased the inertia produced by the corrugated anglelated preampulator hydromatic trimodulated defabulator. Typically this as be done with a pair of offset valve grabbing armature helimorphic coils mounted with ceramic hinged crossover tabs, and now it can be achieved with the use of standard windings but modified with ohm depleted forged caps. This has improved the response recoil of the prevaricating Isolator as it establishes and stabilizes the oscillating frequency of the thrusting harmonic thrashing bearing when it is mounted inversely to the capitulated compression balancer wedge producing an increase of lattice over torque. It is this preproduction of this over torque which is directed to the carbon fiber encased draglink connector shafts that allows or Red Weasel Drivers apply a trans-focal vertical shift in the G-force load distribution in the suspensions fifth dimension adjustment. Unfortunately this has yet to increase our speed on track and ultimately it hasn’t been the technological breakthrough we had hoped for but it has satisfied our undisclosed anonymous contributors and they have reported to be pleased with the investment return and with all the additional funding they have remitted we are pleased to be again rolling in tens of dollars. That has allowed us to further our research effort and we are now working with a new composite alloy called acceleratedium and so far the test results look promising.
We will continue to research and develop senseless technological advances and “flash in the pan” ideas for our racing program; our slogan at SUSRWRRADCAHCE says it best, “If not for us, then who?”
We talked to Miss Susan Boyle the venerated Weasel Wench about the new technology that has been installed on the car; we asked if this could be the stepping stone giving the much needed boost to the Weasels for a podium finish? She responded by saying, “Frankly I don’t understand anything about the whole Gimbaled Sparing Plate do hickey thing a ma bob whozits, all I know is that it makes a pleasant whirring noise and has lots of dials, knobs and colorful flashing LEDs. And I’m not going to talk disparagingly about our head research scientist the incredible Doctor Wile E. Coyote, but his idea of a Kinetic Energy Release System was copied from a photograph of an old giant Acme slingshot.” She went on to say, “Many of the improvements made over the last year to the Red Weasel Racing Porsche have been vast strides in the right direction to land us on the podium, but I still don’t see what good a wine bottle opener permanently mounted to the dash board is going to get it to drive faster. I think we would be better off with a duct tape dispenser on the Mr. Rig’s War Wagon.”
The Weasel Wench keeps track of the Head Weasel’s Lap times as she readies for her next stint.
During the scheduled pit stops and driver changes several teams would receive dividends from their various strategies; gaining precious track position in the pits is the overall goal of every team. A single second in the pits can equate to as much as twenty seconds on track, so it falls to the Teams Service Crew to give the Drivers the biggest advantage they can.
As the last few laps are run the competitive heat in the cars got set to high, even in the open cockpits of the LMP cars the drivers were feeling the pressure and the personal focus was being redefined as each driver worked to gain valuable positions that will make or break them. The battle in the GT class was at the boiling point as the Busters Racing Team number 69, Porsche 997 GT3 RSR was fighting to reduce the deficit separating them from the number 77, Northern Light Racing, Porsche 997 GT3 RSR in an attempt to claim the Class P2 spot. But as the race leader brought the train of cars across the stripe for the finial time. Teams were beginning their celebrations.
The overall win and the LMP Class podium goes to the very dominate number 47, Nexus 6 Racing, Ryan von Steinen and Kevin Banic, Dome S101J to be the only team on the led lap. Second goes to number 42, Racing For Holland, Dome S101J under the capable control of Steve Porter and Erik Teske. Third is Jakob J. Kristensen and Malik Lund in the number 22, Northern Light Racing, Dome S101J.
Winning LMP - Nexus 6 Racing, #47, Ryan von Steinen and Kevin Banic, Dome S101J.
In the GT Class the podium was won by the number 66, Northern Light Racing, Porsche 997 GT3 RSR, driven by Tomas Beha and Kenneth Holleufer. Second to number 70, Caranci's Cobras Racing, Ford GT2, driven by Ed Caranci, Ron Caranci, and Bob Merlino. And on the finial step the number 69, Porsche 997 GT3 RSR, of the Busters Racing Team, Paolo Taddeolini, Mauro Dragoni, and Ryan Mayfield.
Winning GT - Northern Light Racing #66, Porsche 997 GT3 RSR, Tomas Beha and Kenneth Holleufer.
Erik Teske was the events “Rocket Man” posting the fastest lap at a blistering 01:22.434 in the number 42, Racing For Holland, Dome S101J additionally with co-driver Steve Porter led the most laps with 114 over half of the 208 laps of the race.
Red Weasel Racing as not been the only team to try new technologies or hardware to improve their season. Several of the Teams have done upgrades and updates to push their cars to the very limits, an elusive line to balance on without crossing. Crossing that line leads to the occasionally incursion into the dark side which can send a car spinning wildly out of control or violently into a wall ending their race tragically with a parade of tow trucks and street sweepers. As the Race Teams strive to reach the halo of the bright lime light of the podium they face a fierce battle with power and balance. A fine line to straddle in an attempt to achieve the most and last just long enough to win, a difficult task at best and several teams crossed that line and lost only to find that dark side.
Of the events 28 starters the dark side reached out during the race to claim a total of 6 cars and they were to be recorded as DNFs. Of the 6 , 3 were reported as Engine Failures, 1 attributed to an accident, 1 for running out of fuel, and 1 listed as other Technical Problems. The cars types claimed by the cold hand of attrition were 3 Porsche 997 GT3 RSRs, 2 Ford GT2s, and 1 Acura ARX-01B.
The Hard Charger Award goes to the number 16, Deuces MC, Acura ARX-01B driven by Markus Bardenhorst and Ville Repo for the most number overtakes at 13. Starting from the P20 position twisting, turning, and jinking through the field for a P9 finish and worth this mention.
Hard Charger Award Winner - number 16, Deuces MC, Acura ARX-01B.
We thank the Race Stewards, Administrators, and the ILMS-ERL Media Team for another event that is now recorded in the history books. And we set our sights on the 9th Round of the ILMS-ERL season. We pack the trailers and load the aircraft to next meet at my favorite venue, a track steeped in the very essences of greatness and a dynamic history. Join us next time for the 1500km of Nurburgring.
James
ILMS-ERL Staff Writter
