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LeMans and Daytona have the name and history, but they fall short when compared to the 25 Hours of Thunderhill sponsored by the US Air Force. They are shorter. NASA put together the first 25 hour endurance race and it attracted 78 cars with drivers from nearly 30 countries. The challenge was to run more than 1500 miles when we had never tested one of the Factory Five Cobras in more than a four hour race. The Lawson brothers kindly invited me to drive a second entry. This time I would be driving the Cheney Construction car that had performed so well at Nationals. We would be in the #2 car designed to support the primary entry.
Unfortunately we had problems with
a third test car which meant I only got a few laps around this difficult track
before the race would begin on Saturday. Gary Cheney qualifed the car just
a few spots behind the primary factory car so we would be in good shape.
The weather forecast called for rain, but the skies were pretty clear on
Saturday morning. We made the decision to start the orange #2 car on rain
tires while the red #1 Lawson Brothers/Superior Fire car started on dry tires.
With just two minutes before the engines started, it began to rain. I have
to point out that the Air Force stuff was really cool at the start: it
included a fly-by and a Humvee as the pace car.
As night fell, it was cold and rainy. Thunderhill is a complex track with blind spots and the red car didn't have very good lights. When I got in for my first stint in the car, the rain was intermittent and eventually stopped entirely while I was driving. After the damage to the Cheney car, I was determined to be ultra conservative. I drove really slow and was learning my way around. The hardest driving I have ever done was on a particularly difficult Turn 3. This turn begins up hill and then has a blind drop off. That is, it would be blind if you could see. Bright lights from the other side of the track were placed to temporarily blind you. That meant that you approached the top of the hill and had to turn the steering wheel with an estimate of where you think the car needed to end up. The car would cover over the hill, in an off-camber turn. Screw it up and you would end up in the dirt. So the idea was to go blind over this turn with an estimate, wait for the tires to grip to confirm that you had done it right, and then wait for your eyes to adjust to see if you were still on the track. Scary.
To make a long story short, the team did very well for our first long endurance race. Everyone worked together as a real team and we held the car together with wire and used a hammer to straighten out parts that really needed to be machined by hand. That wasn't an option for us and the crew showed great creativity in keeping the car in the race. We ended up 6th in class behind the powerful Rennwerks team. More importantly we finished the race and learned a lot.
The 25 Hours of Thunderhill was a truly memorable experience. Leonard's injury cast a serious pall over the weekend, but the lack of sleep, hard work, and downright scary times was all worth it when that car crossed the finish line!
Don't forget to check out the pictures of us and the car after the race!
These pics were taken by Ed, Dave Borden, and myself.
