Total Spa 24 hours 2011 a personal journey

Tuesday, 09 August 2011 14:00

I am standing patiently in the Graff Racing garage within the Endurance pit lane, waiting for the Mercedes SLS to have a nose job, it has been going on for some 20 minutes but I know they will continue to completion,

after all they have to reshape and rebuild, it is a 24hour race and we are into the ninth hour but of course this is a German car, it will be rebuilt.

My first time at the Total Spa 24hours Blancpain endurance race meeting, but my third time at this Francorchamps circuit, I knew I would have to pace myself for these exhausting paddock and pit areas. Not only is this a 24hour race for the drivers it is a 24hour documentary photographic assignment for me.

After watching the pre qualifying and discovered the rhythm of the pit stop manoeuvres and had made the press shuttle round the circuit, I realised that I would save my energy for the night time slot where my Noctilux lens would play to his hearts content and I would simply witness some amazing engineering strategies.

For once I was not here to keep scores on who was up front or overtaking who, I was here to find out who was coming in the box for a ‘splash and dash’, or a ‘full service’ as the ‘Indy’ car commentators so freely call. I did however, carry with me at all times an entry list which showed me who was driving what, when and where.

Equipped with my M9 and accessories and clothed in a fireproof race suit (borrowed from the my Friends on the classic circuit), this pit lane is a stage for me, an environment I adore. Other garages hold the Ecurie Ecosse, Haribo and DB Motorsport racing teams, all similarly receiving their cars from states of wear and tear. The Haribo team in fact is doing particularly well, gliding into the pit lane with maximum speed allowed, being released up past the pit straight with new fuel to keep the Porsche 997 GT3 R going.

Earlier in the day, at the beginning of the race, I decided that the best spot to rest my feet and bide my time whilst seeing the action was to be inside the press room, with two screens showing me timings and direct TV. I do really after all, want to know who is overtaking who and hear about the pit lane activities, even if my camera and eyes simply want to see. I am very keen to go out and shoot, but I must simply rest staying up from 8pm to 8am is going to be quite a task. The feat of the 12 hour stint needs me to just sit back until the early evening.

The media room filled as the first shots of the start are being sent out to press agencies, people are complaining of back aches, its the low cloud of Spa along with the long lens effect kicking in. However, I although having taken just a few shots, really wait and enjoy the race from inside with an occasional walk out to track-side, I know my feet, I want to be really awake at 3am.

Back in the garage then, whilst the Mercedes AMG takes his nose to a new carbon fibre, the mechanics wrestle with space, how many people can actually get beneath the chassis to refit the underside, how many chaps can take lights off from the nose and refit onto the replacement?

The race is continuing and cars are pitting and leaving, the SLS is still under surgery. I walk up and down the pit sniffing out other shots, other teams getting ready for refuelling, tyres and driver changes, but for this moment, I am dedicated to the nose job on the SLS and begin to relax as the new front takes shape.

He is ready and off out of the pits he goes, I feel loyal to the Mercedes and track his progress as the race goes on. Coming in with Eric Debard at the wheel and out he goes with Grégoire Demoustier. (Olivier Panis not included in these driver changers although he is one of them).

Time then, to get back to the race in hand, who has retired or, rather, crashed (as this seemed to be the fashion early on in the evening).The chaps on pole, Vita4one race team with a Ferrari 458 Italia, are down to 13th, one crash with a BMW and the McLaren car 59, is also out with a fire. Ecurie Ecosse, the British Aston Martin DBRS 9 team with Joe Twyman, Oliver Byrant, Alasdair McCaig and Andrew Smith are currently 22nd with 15 hours to go. Yes, 59 crashed and 58 also a McLaren GT stalled and now in the garage - It could still come out. Car 25, the Lamborghini crashed into pit lane wall just two hours in but there is another Lambo, how is he doing?

I realise this race is impossible to find out who is where and with whom driving, unless you are almost glued to a screen. My pit lane strolls are intermittent with mad dashes into a garage to see how my SLS, the Ecurie Ecosse boys and my new friends the Faster Racing (BMW Z4) teams are doing.

The rain comes and goes and so does the time, I am so happy to have rested my feet in the initial hours to this race, they are firmly embedded on the ground but I begin to realise they are there, cushioned with Brasher boots I am blessed with my choice of footwear.

Suddenly it is 3am and the team mechanics take to their chairs. I make my way back over to the F1 Pits, a lane, which I have mixed my photographic essay, to find grown men hugging blankets and eating fish finger sandwiches. The lights are brighter, the garages are wider. The 'dash and splash' is carefully coordinated now through the night, to allow the crews to get as much rest as possible and let the night drivers get down their stints.

Not many of 'us' are walking around - the photography gang, only the ones who fancy a challenge, or like me to depict an atmosphere. I am having a ball, albeit fighting relentlessly with the notion that it is after about half past four in the morning, I am loving the sights before my camera lens, the idea that my stage is constantly in a state of flux, that despite the fact that I know a routine of the pit crew, I am not sure how it will all turn out.

Slowly the crews begin to stir and the dawn appears above the hills of Francorchamps. Will we have a sunrise or will, as I suspect, there be a hazy fog that provides a refreshing wake up call for the following ten hours of racing.

This is indeed an endurance race, I along with the pit crews and drivers, have all worked throughout the night, like a recognition of something wonderful, a kind of stamina, everything endurance is about. I make my way back up to the press room where, I want to tell everyone what has gone on in the pits below, tell my fellow photographers what they had missed. (What I forget is that this is my first endurance and perhaps, it is not theirs!). I come back buzzing charging my batteries eager to get back out again.

Alas, I fall asleep under my table.

Much to the surprise of other media smudgers returning to their desks, there are indeed a few of us snoozing. Not for long though, the noise of the press room gets me up and almost straight out again, this time, up by the track on Les Combes. Making my way back down round the track with another photographer, we swap cameras for a bit to see if I can shoot with a DSLR auto focus Canon and he with a rangefinder manual focus Leica. It's a game in addition to the fun of the race.

Playing out with our cameras is a tease, but we need to be back to begin the final hours of the race, to find our shooting positions and know what we would like to acquire in our lenses. Both decidingly hungry, we still managed to make it back to the pits without biting each other's heads off, our photographic mission went well.

I learn that my SLS has retired and the Ecurie Eccosse Aston boys are in 20th, having passed a number of redundant and quite frankly carelessly parked cars along the way! (the recovery vehicle obviously picks up the strays, breaks downs and clashes after the race ends). I take stock at my photographic work and ascertain if I would like to shoot the ending, I go to the pits but that is it. I choose not to shoot all the crowd shots, partly because my endurance was flagging. Perhaps next time.

My first 24hours race is over and boy oh boy was it an endurance race! Words cannot describe how I feel about the experience except, that now I truly know what it is about motor racing that I love so much. The pit lane theatre is fabulous.

I walk over to my Mercedes SLS AMG at the Graff Racing garage and take a sigh of relief that he retired with honour and nose intact. I understand that there was a problem with the bumper/ suspension and thought that it was safer to retire.

The Results:

The Audi Sport Team in the Audi R8 (LMS Pro Cup) car number 33 (Greg Franchi /Timo Scheider / Mattias Ekström) win with final lap time of 2:31.950 (with best lap time of 2:21.387). Coming 2nd are the Need for Speed car 76 / Schubert team in the BMW Z4 (Dirk Werner /Edward Sandström /Claudia Hürtgen), starting from 16th position. 3rd place is car number 35 with the Black Falcon team, (Kenneth Heyer /Thomas Jäger / Stéphane Lemeret) in the Mercedes SLS AMG (PRO CUP). Ecurie Ecosse in the Aston Martin comes in 20th place with a final lap time of 2:40.146

Total Spa 24 hours 2011 - I will see you next year. I miss you already. By Lara Platman

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