24 Hours of Le Mans, Oct 29-30, 2016

The 24 Hours of Le Mans at Circuit de la Sarthe – simply epic. For those vApex drivers who have never experience a 24-hour endurance race, you must simply add it to you “bucket list” because no words can ever express the excitement, the intensity, soreness, exhaustion and exhilaration you get – even in the virtual world. It’s simply awesome. At iRacing’s first 24 Hours of Le Mans, our vApex Racing Group drivers again demonstrated our team’s strength. We had three, well maybe four, vApex Teams: Russell, Howard and Shane Norton in the Ford GT; Andy, JC and Brian in an HPD ARX; and Richard, Dave, and Kevin in a second HPD ARX. Rumor has it we also had Harrison Kilpatrick and an unknown driver in an unknown car for our vApex Orange team! Really? Who would have known? Regardless of where our teams finished though, it’s not so much about winning as it is about enduring a 24-hour long race. So, in the immortal words of the The Hudson Hornet: “Lightening, there’s more to racin’ than winnin…’”, we’ll attempt to recap the team’s concerted effort to win this epic 24-hour event.

FGT (Team Purple; Russell, Howard and Shane)

Our FGT Team qualified third on the grid with a plan to rotate drivers every three stints (about 2.5 hours a drive). They had a clean start and developed a +5 second gap on P4 within the first few laps while P1/P2 battle each other aggressively and eventually got in to each other and some tires. At about the 4.5 hour mark, they were P1, but P2 was staying close. As the approach the second Mulsanne chicane, they got wrapped up with some back marker HPDs and GT1s and ended up in the tire wall.

They pitted, took 9 minutes of repairs, and dropped to P13. The Team worked solidly for multiple stints thereafter and barely putting a tire out of line as they steadily moved the car up to P6 and kept on the same lap as all but P1. By the 11th hour, they had caught P4 and were logging laps and saving fuel; unfortunately, P4 lost control of their car in the Dunlop chicane, went off course, then drove back on course and hit our car in the side. This brought on about 16 minutes of repairs. The end result was the car was 4-6 seconds off our original pace, top speed was down 5+mph, and it was difficult to control. At the 13 hours and 35 minutes mark the team made the tough decision to retire recognizing the potent negatively impact to another team with a damaged car. It was difficult to retire, but the best decision for vApex and the rest of the teams. Still, it was a really fun race and they had the fastest car and the most talented drivers – but it’s racing. Even losing 9 minutes early made the race even more exciting because they had to constantly monitor the pace of other teams and we were always within a minute of the next position.

HPD (Team Black; Andy, JC, and Brian)

Their team started well, then experienced a net code issue that caused roughly 20 minutes of repair. Following the repairs, we decided that the aerodynamic were off a bit so decided to realign the left side using a wall, but got a little too aggressive and caused 10 mins repair. Still though, the guys in the garage did a remarkable job on repairs and the car was like brand new! So, after repairs and a driver change, they started setting steady lap times over multiple stints and multiple drivers. Unfortunately, the Halloween gremlins bit them again as power went on one of the drivers, requiring yet another unscheduled pit stop and requisite driver change. It’s unclear where they finished, but their most recent update had them P34, 15 laps down. Regardless, they had fun and it was a huge learning curve to experience 3-6 HPDs all are running nose to tail! The speed developed in the drafts were much more than anticipated! It's a lot of work to get out of the way!

HPD (Team Green; Richard, Dave and Kevin)

The team has a fantastic time. They started P12 and were really solid during the first stint while all the cars were bunched up and they worked their way up to P9 during the first couple of stints. During the first driver change, they continued their relentless pursuit of leaders. During “Magic” Kevin’s stint, he showed the team how to use the gas pedal properly and he was able to run great pace, fuel mix on max, and still managed an extra lap per stint (14laps)! During the team’s 2nd cycle thru their drivers, each doing double stints, they had climbed to P3, only 15 seconds behind P2. The leaders appeared to be running an interesting race, but they have just 1 fast driver and their strategy appeared to be to get him back as soon as possible since they were a half-cycle out of rotation.

Our green team was steadily in the top 3 throughout most of the event and continued to close the margin to P2. The team felt optimistic that they could race them on the long run, especially overnight where they had 3 equally quick drivers. The team also kept the car clean throughout the event and the only damage sustain was 0.3 sec of optional repairs. They worked incredibly hard all night and after 24 hours of racing brought home a well-deserved P2, only 1:33 seconds behind the leader. It was an absolutely awesome run and a BIG thanks to the Big Green teammates: Richard Woelkers, Dave Jacques, and Kevin Linden...the guys were fantastic on the track and worked fantastic together!

So, another 24 Hour of Le Mans slips into history with vApex Racing Group standing on the podium, experiencing the tragedy of an early retirement, and enduring a 24 hour long race to the finish. We’re all proud of our teammates and encourage everyone to experience endurance racing. We have great team chemistry guys…