Team USA has won the 2005 HO LeMans 24hr race in Derby, England.

We were leading at the end of each hour on 23 of the 24 hours and set
a new world record to boot.

More to follow including a fantastic picture of our car hammering
under the Mulsanne bridge.


dw

That race is so cool. International participation on one of the finest custom tracks ever built. I can't wait to see the pictures and the full race report. As much as I love racing slot cars, a 24 hour race must be extremely grueling and the drivers of every team deserve the utmost respect and credit. To compete and win is amazing enough, but set a new record is nothing short of fantastic!

The only way it could have been better for me would have been if we had been using my own chassis!

I can't really describe how I'm feeling at the moment, but later in the week I will try if people will indulge me....


dw

I'm indulgent - report away!
Thanks in advance,
Ron

Outstanding!
Is there anyplace online that has the story?
Scott

Yo Deane, I am all ears....... Cudos on the win.:thumbsup: Can't wait to see some pictures, and read the low down on the whole race.

Jeff

Congratulations!!

Killer race, awesome event and I can't wait to read the write-ups and see the photos.

Congrats to the team. Can't wait for the pix to be posted! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: rr

my pix are not very good but there were lots of people taking pictures so sit tight....

Hello—

Let me congratulate you on the major front put up by you and the team. Good show! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I'm looking forward to the pics also.

Thank you for this great info!


Cheers!

OK.
This is our car, A Rokar 911 that came out out 0.1g above the minimum!

Despite the wing the tiny overhangs meant the handling was fantastic. Next year we have something even better up our sleeve!

Here are 7 of the 8 cars.
If you are wondering why there are so many vettes and 917s it is because they have been used in the past by Team USA & DHORC respectively, and these 2 teams have won every race bar two.

This is Tony Baldock from London, he is the team's star driver.
With him on board all (!!) the rest of us had to do was keep a steady pace and let him build a cushion.
He really enjoys driving Brad Bowman prepared cars and this year it really showed.

Many times he would cover (in 15 minutes) 1000'-1500' more distance than rival drivers. He drove for something like 11 hours so that is a lot of miles & laps!!

Some info on your car setup and parts consumption would be interesting to hear about.

Hi,

It turns out we lead all but about 8 minutes!

We had a basic strategy of starting the race with our quickest guy, thanks to qualifying second we had plenty of choice of lane to start in. Our main rivals chose 7 so we chose 6, this meant that we had done the four 'gutter' lanes (7,8,1,2) after 15 hours (3 hours per lane). Our quick guy was able to counteract the fact our rivals finished with the gutter lanes 3 hours before us and then it was simply (!) a case of ensuring our slower guys always handed him a lead to build upon.

We won by 123 laps (5.42 miles), a lot of that came toward the end when the chasing teams gave up the ghost and concentrated on each other.

The only downside was the bodies. We had a slew of SCI bodies and some Tomy Cobras lightened out by former winner Jeff Hurley. The later simply had two much 'arse' to handle well and the SCI bodies were too heavy. Luckily we had a Rokar 911 converted for use with the supplied chassis (Turbo) and we were very near the minimum weight of 3 grams.

For next year we hope to have our second quickest guy, David Nier, back in the team to counteract the driver changes already being put in place by our main 2 rivals. I'm also hoping we can race a resin body, but of course the challenge is getting one that is light enough without it being too weak. At the moment, if we use a standard body the other teams can copy us but an exclusive resin body would give us an edge....

To give some background on the event:

The LeMans track is routed by Brad Bowman, based on the 70s circuit prior to the chicane blight, and 233' long with 8 lanes.
Teams are allowed quite a bit of freedom with regard to bodies & pit equipment but the cars/spares are supplied and controlled by the organisers.
The race has been run since 1992 when Team HOSRA won. Since then the home team DHORC have won the event 5 times, Southern Comfort twice and Team USA 4 times.

Regds - Deane

Pretty impressive. Congrats. I didn't realize that you were supplied the cars. So what mods could you do? Bodies, tires, what else?

Looking forward to the rest of the show.

Jim

Pretty impressive. Congrats. I didn't realize that you were supplied the cars. So what mods could you do? Bodies, tires, what else?

Jim

Really that is it. You can bend or otherwise blueprint all the bits but the motors must remained sealed. The organisers supply all the parts including motors with stock red, stock green and hot stock ($10) arms.

I know that some people want to bring their own cars but the organisers always wanted to keep the playing field level. If we did race our own cars I think Team USA would win every year....


dw