When I saw our Mosler wallop the barrier at Thruxton after unfortunate contact from our old TVR from last year I said it was game over. The car was trashed, a 7G impact at 45 degrees into the barrier had pushed the left front wheel into the tub. 50mph to zero in a blink of an eyelid and the wheel acted like battering ram and cracked the honeycomb tub (chassis).
On the way home I rang Pete from Moslers in the US. Ask Warren if you can borrow Car 31 he said.....Car 31 was the car we raced at Daytona with our own car.....and the car that Joao Barbosa and myself raced at Phoenix earlier this year in the Grand Am race. I asked Warren and he was more than happy to loan us the car, and checked with Tony Herridge. We all decided that the Championship was still attainable, so we went for it. This was on the Monday after Thruxton.
Saturday 11 am I picked up the car from Heathrow, and we got to work. The car had no engine or box, and needed a number of mods for the British Regulations, but it was in excellent condition. Wednesday night, 11pm we loaded the car on the truck and headed for Spa. The car wasn't quite finished, but was good enough to put on the track.
It was wet wet wet. As only Spa can be....torrential at times. Our car turned into a boat the water was so deep, it actually lifted the body of the ground! The car was driving fine and we concentrated on a wet set up. Come qualifying we could see the track was drying quickly, so we slipped intermediates on at the end of the session and I managed just one flying lap on them to secure second place. We should have gone on them a lap earlier. Tommy Erdos in the Balfe car pipped us to the post.
The weather was steadily getting better, and we had a pretty radical wet set up, but we suspected the race was going to be more dry than wet, so we opted for a full house dry set up. We were not sure how good the dry set up would be, so tried it in the warm up on full tanks and the car was good.
As we readied for the race, it blackclouds crept over and we thought we'd dropped a clanger. I started the race, with both Le Mans TVR's hounding me, and within a few laps it started raining.....well actually the heavens opened in Ark like fashion!
I was in second place, a couple of seconds behind Tommy Erdos, then suddenly my car reverted to being a boat again as I found myself with no rear tyres making contact with the ground! My pace dropped as our dry set up hurt us, Rob Barff in the TVR came past gleefully and I was left to play with Lee Caroline in the other TVR.
The rain stopped, and then our car started to work again, and we started catching Barffy and Erdos. The track dried to a point that we had to change tyres, but because of the draconian fuel stop minimum time (2 minutes for safety reasons) it meant that we would go out of sequence, but we went for it.....as did Barffy in the TVR. Sadly they forgot to do the 2 minute stop though, and as soon as the nozzle came out they were off! This gave them a pretty substantial lead. They got a stop and go for it, but they still had an advantage. I'm sure it wasn't malicious ....somebody just forgot....
I stayed in the car as the conditions were still quite treacherous and I had the circuit knowledge. This worked well, as I got the gap down to Shaun Balfe to around 20 seconds, but then he pulled it back out again by another 10 seconds. Time for another stop, and this time we put in Joao Barbosa. Now we saw some fireworks. Joao started putting in some incredible lap times. He was 50 seconds behind Jamie Derbyshire, and as a light drizzle fell. Joao became the fastest man on the track bar a couple of prototypes, and was cutting into the Balfe cars lead at up to 8 seconds a lap. The team were in shock. We knew he was good...but not that good. This was mesmeric! In no time at all we were in the lead and pulling away rapidly. Then another safety car came out. We pulled Joao in and filled him up and gave him new tyres again. The safety car took 5 minutes to do a lap, our fuel and tyre stop took around 3 minutes. Joao got back on the track, though was held up by a Marcos that spewed gravel and oil all over the track after an excursion, and with the safety car lights now out, Joao scampered off and soon overhauled Jamie Derbyshire again.
We were now in the lead with a fuel stop in our pocket. Only one more stop needed, leave Joao out till the fuel ran out, then pop Tom in for the finish.....then another Safety car.....just at the wrong time for us. The Balfe car was already being shown 4 laps to go to their pits stop on their board. They were in, and Tommy 'fast' Erdos was installed. Now we had a problem. We did not have the economy they were getting, and couldn't pit now and guarantee getting to the finish....certainly not under pressure. Joao had shown his sensational pace, and I knew that neither I nor Tom would be able to win this race. We would have to put Mr Erdos under considerable pressure, in the form of Joao. It was going to be very tight. The other problem was that Joao had been in the car for one and a half hours, and no driver was allowed to do a continuos stint for 55% of the race. We stopped the car during the safety car stint and got Tom in and out on track quickly to keep track position. We hoped the safety car period would be longer, but suddenly we were off, and Erdos was 2 minutes 30 seconds behind Tom and we still had fuel and tyres to do.
As soon as we reached the required laps so we knew we could finish we whipped Tom in and put Joao in the car, waited for 2 minutes for the fuel, then flung a new set of tyres on the car. Joao was off, 64 seconds behind Mr. Erdos with an hour and fifteen to go. The hunt was on. Joao reeled off a set of incredible laps, starting with a 2.26.5.....nobody came even close to it, let alone the stunning set of laps that followed it. We relayed Erdos's lap time to Joao, and the gap. He was like a dog with a rat. The gap came down at 3 to 5 seconds a lap, but we realised that The Balfes were tight on fuel, and that they had to run slow to be able to finish. At what point would Tommy be let off his own leash? With a 20 second gap at 15 minutes to go, Tommy poured on the coals, but Joao still reduced the gap, every lap.....but the margin was smaller now, 1 to 2 seconds. Tommy had no response in terms of speed, and fair play to him, he had to balance his driving knowing that he was very very tight on fuel....we didn't know how tight, and with 2 laps to go the gap was 5 seconds...my knees were like jelly...
Just as Joao hit Eau Rouge he met the Dennis Leech TVR going very slowly.....which cost us 2 seconds....we went ballistic with frustration, Tommy was still pushing as hard as he could, and it looked like we didn't have enough time or laps to catch him, the Balfe pit board showed "transfer pump on"...we watched the screens, the lap was broken into 3 sectors, and we could see the times and gap reduce on every sector, last lap and Joao is 3 seconds behind, and still setting incredible lap times...we ran back into the garage to check the monitors....3 seconds at the first sector turned to.....blink blink...0.2! Joao was on him! We were into the last sector, the last minute of the race, after five and three quarter hours, a 1000km race....Joao sparked up on the radio...."out of petrol....out of petrol...." we weren't sure if it was us or them...we hurtled to the pit wall, I stood on it, a marshall got excited at me, we ignored him....."How about this guys!" said Joao on the radio as the silver Mosler hurtled down from La Scource, past the finish line, first !!!!!
The pit wall erupted. It was Spa 2000 again when we won our first ever GT race in the Cerbera....tears and hugs and lots of emotion....as Moley always said, "you have to go through the lows to appreciate the highs", and by God we needed this.
This was a race of teamwork. We shouldn't have even been there after the crash at Thruxton, and the Championship for Tom should have been dead and buried. But Mosler Automotive generously offered us a car, Tony Herridge made it happen, Luke, Matt, Julian, Steve, Glen, Pete, Dan and Mike put the car together, and the rest of the team put their heart into it, Les, Caroline, Dominiek and Chris, Martin and especially Kate who looked after Morgan for the whole race watching Bugs Life 2 (!), Mole, Easty, Helen, Claire.....and most importantly of all Tom Herridge who sacrificed his stint and put his ego in a box for the result.
And finally to Mr. Joao Ricardo Da Silva Barbosa......Ayrton Sennas name was Da Silva, just a coincidence, its a family name, but in all my years of racing I have never seen a drive like that, not at this close quarters.
You only read about them by the greats, Fangio at the Nurburgring.....Mansell chasing down Piquet at the Silverstone Grand Prix.....you had to be here to understand the achievement....every lap, flat out, no mistakes...after already having been in the car for an hour and a half.
Joao gave everybody a driving lesson at Spa. Somebody somewhere should give this guy a topline drive. He is special.
So now we go into the final race at Brands at the end of the month. If we win the race and get fastest lap, Tom is champion. We will be trying very very hard.
Spa race report (Mosler) 2003
On the way home I rang Pete from Moslers in the US. Ask Warren if you can borrow Car 31 he said.....Car 31 was the car we raced at Daytona with our own car.....and the car that Joao Barbosa and myself raced at Phoenix earlier this year in the Grand Am race. I asked Warren and he was more than happy to loan us the car, and checked with Tony Herridge. We all decided that the Championship was still attainable, so we went for it. This was on the Monday after Thruxton.
It was wet wet wet. As only Spa can be....torrential at times. Our car turned into a boat the water was so deep, it actually lifted the body of the ground! The car was driving fine and we concentrated on a wet set up. Come qualifying we could see the track was drying quickly, so we slipped intermediates on at the end of the session and I managed just one flying lap on them to secure second place. We should have gone on them a lap earlier. Tommy Erdos in the Balfe car pipped us to the post.
The weather was steadily getting better, and we had a pretty radical wet set up, but we suspected the race was going to be more dry than wet, so we opted for a full house dry set up. We were not sure how good the dry set up would be, so tried it in the warm up on full tanks and the car was good.
The rain stopped, and then our car started to work again, and we started catching Barffy and Erdos. The track dried to a point that we had to change tyres, but because of the draconian fuel stop minimum time (2 minutes for safety reasons) it meant that we would go out of sequence, but we went for it.....as did Barffy in the TVR. Sadly they forgot to do the 2 minute stop though, and as soon as the nozzle came out they were off! This gave them a pretty substantial lead. They got a stop and go for it, but they still had an advantage. I'm sure it wasn't malicious ....somebody just forgot....
I stayed in the car as the conditions were still quite treacherous and I had the circuit knowledge. This worked well, as I got the gap down to Shaun Balfe to around 20 seconds, but then he pulled it back out again by another 10 seconds. Time for another stop, and this time we put in Joao Barbosa. Now we saw some fireworks. Joao started putting in some incredible lap times. He was 50 seconds behind Jamie Derbyshire, and as a light drizzle fell. Joao became the fastest man on the track bar a couple of prototypes, and was cutting into the Balfe cars lead at up to 8 seconds a lap. The team were in shock. We knew he was good...but not that good. This was mesmeric! In no time at all we were in the lead and pulling away rapidly. Then another safety car came out. We pulled Joao in and filled him up and gave him new tyres again. The safety car took 5 minutes to do a lap, our fuel and tyre stop took around 3 minutes. Joao got back on the track, though was held up by a Marcos that spewed gravel and oil all over the track after an excursion, and with the safety car lights now out, Joao scampered off and soon overhauled Jamie Derbyshire again.
We were now in the lead with a fuel stop in our pocket. Only one more stop needed, leave Joao out till the fuel ran out, then pop Tom in for the finish.....then another Safety car.....just at the wrong time for us. The Balfe car was already being shown 4 laps to go to their pits stop on their board. They were in, and Tommy 'fast' Erdos was installed. Now we had a problem. We did not have the economy they were getting, and couldn't pit now and guarantee getting to the finish....certainly not under pressure. Joao had shown his sensational pace, and I knew that neither I nor Tom would be able to win this race. We would have to put Mr Erdos under considerable pressure, in the form of Joao. It was going to be very tight. The other problem was that Joao had been in the car for one and a half hours, and no driver was allowed to do a continuos stint for 55% of the race. We stopped the car during the safety car stint and got Tom in and out on track quickly to keep track position. We hoped the safety car period would be longer, but suddenly we were off, and Erdos was 2 minutes 30 seconds behind Tom and we still had fuel and tyres to do.
As soon as we reached the required laps so we knew we could finish we whipped Tom in and put Joao in the car, waited for 2 minutes for the fuel, then flung a new set of tyres on the car. Joao was off, 64 seconds behind Mr. Erdos with an hour and fifteen to go. The hunt was on. Joao reeled off a set of incredible laps, starting with a 2.26.5.....nobody came even close to it, let alone the stunning set of laps that followed it. We relayed Erdos's lap time to Joao, and the gap. He was like a dog with a rat. The gap came down at 3 to 5 seconds a lap, but we realised that The Balfes were tight on fuel, and that they had to run slow to be able to finish. At what point would Tommy be let off his own leash? With a 20 second gap at 15 minutes to go, Tommy poured on the coals, but Joao still reduced the gap, every lap.....but the margin was smaller now, 1 to 2 seconds. Tommy had no response in terms of speed, and fair play to him, he had to balance his driving knowing that he was very very tight on fuel....we didn't know how tight, and with 2 laps to go the gap was 5 seconds...my knees were like jelly...
Just as Joao hit Eau Rouge he met the Dennis Leech TVR going very slowly.....which cost us 2 seconds....we went ballistic with frustration, Tommy was still pushing as hard as he could, and it looked like we didn't have enough time or laps to catch him, the Balfe pit board showed "transfer pump on"...we watched the screens, the lap was broken into 3 sectors, and we could see the times and gap reduce on every sector, last lap and Joao is 3 seconds behind, and still setting incredible lap times...we ran back into the garage to check the monitors....3 seconds at the first sector turned to.....blink blink...0.2! Joao was on him! We were into the last sector, the last minute of the race, after five and three quarter hours, a 1000km race....Joao sparked up on the radio...."out of petrol....out of petrol...." we weren't sure if it was us or them...we hurtled to the pit wall, I stood on it, a marshall got excited at me, we ignored him....."How about this guys!" said Joao on the radio as the silver Mosler hurtled down from La Scource, past the finish line, first !!!!!
This was a race of teamwork. We shouldn't have even been there after the crash at Thruxton, and the Championship for Tom should have been dead and buried. But Mosler Automotive generously offered us a car, Tony Herridge made it happen, Luke, Matt, Julian, Steve, Glen, Pete, Dan and Mike put the car together, and the rest of the team put their heart into it, Les, Caroline, Dominiek and Chris, Martin and especially Kate who looked after Morgan for the whole race watching Bugs Life 2 (!), Mole, Easty, Helen, Claire.....and most importantly of all Tom Herridge who sacrificed his stint and put his ego in a box for the result.
You only read about them by the greats, Fangio at the Nurburgring.....Mansell chasing down Piquet at the Silverstone Grand Prix.....you had to be here to understand the achievement....every lap, flat out, no mistakes...after already having been in the car for an hour and a half.
Joao gave everybody a driving lesson at Spa. Somebody somewhere should give this guy a topline drive. He is special.
So now we go into the final race at Brands at the end of the month. If we win the race and get fastest lap, Tom is champion. We will be trying very very hard.
Martin Short
www.rollcentre.com