Silverstone 24 hour September 8,9,10th 2006
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Live lap timing and results can be found on the MST timing website click here
ALL PHOTOS WIlL BE PUBLISHED EVERY FEW HOURS CLICK HERE TO SEE THEM ALL
Driving for Richard Thorne Motorsport we have Howard Spooner, Max Wakefield, Christian McCarthy, and Tom Shrimpton. Howard and Max who are old friends have previously enjoyed successful drives in single seaters. Christian McCarthy is an experienced Morgan man and runs the excellent Morgan Driving Experience with an Aero 8 road car. Tom Shrimpton, who has considerable experience in our Aero, is the youngest member of the team at 21 and competed with us at Bathurst in Australia at the end of 2003.
Howard Spooner
Max Wakefield
"Heros will only be named after 24 hours. With German engines and British grit we hope to be counted amongst them"
Christian McCarthy
Tom Shrimpton
Friday 8th September:
Three months of hard work came to a head yesterday when the Richard Thorne Motorsport Aero 8 fired up for the first of three pre race test sessions. All the preparation work has been targeted at improving reliability and ease of access for the rigours of 24 hour racing. Oil, water and power steering systems have all been simplified, repositioned and upgraded. The original electrical system, essentially that of a standard road car was completely removed and a bespoke competition loom made and installed by Dave Bradley of BB Services. The original dashboard and instruments have been replaced by an all new dash and Motec digital display programmed to compliment the Motec engine management system and allow car and engine data logging. A fresh 4.6 BMW V8 built by John Eales of J.E. Developments has been installed with a competition AP lightweight triple plate clutch. Despite the very considerable work carried out the three test sessions were completed with only a couple of minor glitches.
Day Qualifying 10.25
All 4 drivers qualified without a hitch, in 27th position out of the 52-car field. There are many more powerful cars in the rest of the field and indeed in our class! The Prosport 3000 was recently sent out of British GT Cup Class by the organisers on the grounds that it is a pure bred racecar not a production car, and the M3 GTR V8 replica has 560 BHP for example!!
We are currently fitting new discs all round and the endurance brake pads ahead of this evenings night qualifying session at 8pm.
More photos, night qualifying report to follow!!!
Night qualifying 8.00
At 8pm as the light finally faded after a glorious sunset the 24 hour cars barked into life for 2 hours of night qualifying. This was the first opportunity to test the additional lights under race conditions. Tom Shrimpton taking the first stint. We competed the necessary 3 flying laps bedding in new tyres and new discs all round. Christian was next in the car and used main beam and the auxiliary spots for the first time. From the pit wall it was immediately obvious that the lights had dimmed and were not holding a full voltage. As Christian pitted having qualified, a brief inspection was made with nothing obvious found. However a jump pack was needed to fire up the car for Howard Spooner and finally for Max Wakefield, nevertheless all drivers completed the mandatory number of laps. Weve qualified game on!!!!!
What fails to kill us only makes us stronger - Max Wakefield (our resident philosopher) c/o Nietzsche
Saturday 9th September
Today we have been joined by Morgan owner Ronnie Price author of TOK 258 Morgan Winner at Le Mans - "Great to see Morgan in the britcar 24 hours - Like old times at the Le Mans Classic".
We have also been joined by our refuelling crew Melvyn and Adam Rutter, and Knut Hallan and Arne Johansens all the way from Oslo for the weekend, as well as finance Director Tim Whitworth from Morgan Motor Company.
More news after the warm up laps at 12.15
Warm Up 12.15
The car has just come back from the final warm up before the race start. We have scrubbed in 2 sets of new tyres and the team are now completing final cleaning and preparation for the race.
New pictures available click here
Grid form up next at 4.00, start at 5.00!!!
The Race Saturday 9th 5pm to Sunday 10th 5pm
3pm: We have just been joined by Matthew Parkin Sales Director of Morgan Motor Company who will be running live updates from the main Morgan Motor Company Website throughout the night. Click here to read his race reports and up to date information as it happens. We will continue to update the photos and bring you reports in this section too. Wish us luck!
Some of our team:
Richard Thorne, team owner
Dave Bradley, team manager
Simon Hall, race technician
Dan Monk, race technician
James Bristow, race technician
Melvyn and Adam Rutter, refuelling
Tim Whitworth, Financial Director Morgan Motor Company, refuelling
Neil Cullen, timing and pit support
The whole team