Read below how the event went in George's review. (The PDF version can be downloaded, however it is 11MB in size)
SDRCC Endurance Event 2009
SDRCC Endurance Event 2009
By George Haining – SDRCC Chairman
Sponsoring the “Archie Foundation” (Aberdeen’s Children’s Hospital)
A new SDRCC (Stonehaven and District Radio Car Club) member took part in a 3-hour endurance race at GRCC (Grampian Radio Car Club) earlier this year and wanted to do another one, so the seed was planted!
In early August 2009 Chris Briggs approached the committee about holding a 24 hour race for charity. The calendar was quite full so we ended up moving our club championship round back two weeks, this freed up the 12th & 13th September. The idea was also to contact the Guinness World Records and hopefully get them on board for this record attempt but unfortunately time was against us in this respect. We’ll just have to do it again next year! At first we had a total of three teams interested but as time wore on this went down to just one, the SDRCC team. Chris at this stage was not sure about the event but the club still wanted it to go ahead if only for the charity we had chosen to support, so we agreed to make it an endurance challenge and not a race. Personally speaking I was looking forward to doing the rounds at work with my sponsor sheet, getting back everyone who I have given money to in the past – payback time!
The car at the start
The weekend arrived and the weather forecast was looking good which was a blessing. At first we had planned going down on the Friday night but instead we opted for an early start on Saturday morning. In hindsight we maybe should have got everything ready the day before and have a long lie in bed (note to diary for next year). Saturday dawned and Pauline and myself were pleased to see Chris had beaten us to the track. The grass was very wet with dew so we started putting up the pit tent and cutting the grass in the pitting area. We managed to get everything ready by 10:30 but Pauline had to make a trip back up the road for some items we had forgotten. Dan arrived just after 11:30 followed by Jason. So, that was the 5 drivers who were able to race the whole 24 hours on site. All that remained was to cut the mounting holes in the body shell to ensure it would fit the different chassis’ we would be using and make sure the Personal Transponder (PT) could be plugged and un-plugged quickly during driver changes.
The next challenge was to setup the computer for one long race and the PT number loaded. We were finally ready to go at 12:40. We were all running our own cars for this event in a rota turn however Chris was the only person running SubC batteries, everyone else opting for Lipo’s. The rules stated we were to run per pro-stock so everyone ran 10.5 brushless. Running a brushed motor for this length of time would not really have been an option due to the extra workload. I must say at this point we did not have one breakage during the 24 hours which just shows how good the equipment is these days.
Chris starts us off looking relaxed
Chris went first and with his battery he was able to complete 35 laps at an average lap time of 21.13 seconds. Next followed myself running 2 lipo packs wired in parallel, which was good for between 30 - 40 minutes, depending on how hard I pushed. Next came Dan and Jason who were both running a single lipo pack lasting between 15 - 20 minutes. So at worst we had to be ready every 80 minutes until extra drivers turned up. After the first run, Chris started to put 2 to 3 packs through his car, one after the other.
Pauline, the one female driver, was going to use my car should we need another driver. As it was, Pauline changed roles to become the official time keeper for each driver on the rostrum plus marshal when required. This was a key job we had not realised we needed before starting. The change over times needed to be managed by someone, making sure the next driver was ready a minute or so before swapping, whilst informing the driver on the rostrum how long they had been running for. Personally speaking I lost all sense of time during my runs. At one time I can remember thinking I had been running for ages only to be told that I was only 10 minutes in, meaning I had another 20 to minutes to go!
Jason feels like he is back in Australia with the heat in Stonehaven!
I’ll explain at this stage the system I was running for this event. A couple of weeks earlier Chris had mentioned to me about putting 2 batteries in parallel giving twice the capacity but the same voltage. I thought this was a great idea because I had 2 old Trinity Lipos; each had internal low voltage cut-offs, which would make it safe. At first I was not going to run this system if we had another team since although not technically illegal might have upset other teams but since we were the only team I decided to run using this setup.
Being the second driver to take over from Chris I broke the first milestone of 100 laps in just under 40 minutes. For some other unknown reason I also broke the 1000 lap barrier just after 6-1/2 hours. The computer initially estimated 4,150 laps which dropped to 3,600 laps before we finally finished with just over 3,740 laps.
George takes over for a 40min stint
By mid afternoon another 2 drivers come down, Steve and David. Both were running Lipos and were able to last for between 10-15 minutes. At this stage the BBQ was broken out and everyone had a burger.
Steve takes his turn!
We had a few local people interested and willing us along at various times – including an additional donation to the charity made by a Grandfather teaching his Granddaughter how to pick bramble berries! One dog walker at 5:30 on Sunday morning must have thought we were all mad, especially as he had seen us racing on Saturday afternoon!
Stephen (one of our junior members) and his dad Nic arrived just after 18:00 on the Saturday and started to charge up their batteries ready for the night shift. So once they got going we had 7 cars in the rota which was the highest amount during the 24 hours giving nearly 2 hours between turns!
The lights come on at dusk
Then it started to get dark. The lights (which were supplied by HireStation) were switched on. At first we barely needed them but as it got darker we soon realised they were not best positioned and some adjustment was needed. The problem was getting an even light over the area and we had one or two bright spots making other areas seem dark. Then just as we got it sorted the power went off on one set of lights. This was traced to a faulty extension real, which was swapped out. With all the lights connected to the same 20 Amp supply the breaker kept tripping! Nic, who is our Mr Fixit man, sorted all these problems. So we settled down to a fine evenings racing. Personally, the dark was playing tricks on my mind. At first the rostrum seemed lower than normal. Then it felt like I was driving my car by instinct, which was plain weird. Eventually Steve dragged David away to bed just after midnight leaving 5 cars to run through until dawn. The 5 car team would mean only 70 - 80 minutes between runs so we needed to check our cars for things coming undone and charge the lipos, after that there was about 50 minutes to eat or sleep - apart from Chris who found out that having to charge and cycle all the subC packs he had left little time for sleep!
I did manage to get 50 minutes sleep just after 02:00 and Pauline the same after my next drive otherwise that was it until 18:00 on Sunday.
The track is a different place at night!
Then the bats started flying around, they were at first quite high but when you were on the rostrum they would be flying below you! When you were driving and watching the car it was very off putting seeing a bat fly below taking your attention for a brief moment. Jason had a scare when one bat actually flew into his transmitter aerial whilst driving!
Daylight appeared and we started the final leg of our run. Bacon sandwiches, coffee and tea were the order of the morning. Gareth (another junior member) arrived shortly after 08:00 and started to drive Dan’s car.
Stephen was now sleeping in a summer chair inside the pit tent and a new competition started to see what we could balance on his head without him waking up. First off a body shell was place on his head / face and a few pictures taken, then tyres. I think we got about 8 balancing on his head before it became too unstable – he still never woke up!
Then the first real mistake, a change in running order resulted in confusion and Chris went out without a PT We realised the mistake before too much laps were lost.
Finally Steve and David returned to help out in the final 2 hours which meant the team could start putting the lights etc away since everyone was going to be keen to get home wash up and get some food other than bacon rolls.
Unfortunately we started to get some drizzle in the morning, which meant wet tyres were being put on and off the whole time. Everyone had been using sweep tyres left over from the GP held in June this year which helped reduce the cost. These tyres lasted really well bearing in mind they had already been used and were being thrown away by GP racers. Personally I was getting at least another hours worth of run time before the canvas was visible. It was also interesting to see how each person’s car was using the tyres, my cars rear left side (outside tyre) was always wearing out first however most other cars were wearing out their front tyres first. I guess we all drive differently and have our cars setup differently also. The prize for the heaviest tyre user was Chris – hardly surprising seeing as though he was the least experienced driver and smoothness not being a skill in his driving bag of tricks yet. In fact, at one point, Chris was complaining of understeer, the problem being traced, quite easily to two front wheels with tyres that had completely disintegrated!
Chris conducts some destructive testing!
Chris drove the final laps of the 24 hours, since it was his idea in the first place. The final 3 hours of this event seemed to have been the fastest suggesting our record can be broken.
The lap times
It can be seen that the lap times remained very constant over the 24 hours with an average lap (without changeover lap times) being 21.4 seconds.
So after reading this I bet you’re in two camps:
Camp One who fancy a go at this and I can recommend it just hours afterwards this event.
or
Camp two who think were all mad as hatters.
Either way we raised some money for a very good cause and had a whale of a time.
Roll on next year and the next 24 hour endurance event!
Some interesting facts:
This would be like driving a model car from Stonehaven to central London!
So lets conclude, a long session, lots of tired eyes, lots of bacon, lots of Red Bull (other energy beverages are available!) and (as of 26th September), the total cash raised for the Archie Foundation was:
£1,400
The final photo call
The Team From Left to Right:
Chris Briggs, Stephen Burnett ,Steve Harley, David Scott, Jason Lowe, Gareth Hunt, Dan Rowlands , Pauline Haining, George Haining
Links to some video footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKFsBlHsixk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB3NVJhOF94