Once again over 230 race cars, from as far afield as Australia and Japan, took the start of the world-renowned 24 hour race at the 14 mile Nürburgring Nordschleife race track in the Eifel mountains of northwestern Germany. With the Nurburgring F1 Grand Price track also forming and additional part of the circuit, the total lap would be 15.86 miles.
As the teams began to arrive at the track during the week preceeding the event, it became clear something was very wrong: there was no sign of rain! With temperatures peaking around 30C, this would be a tough event for both cars and drivers.
The Honda Civic Type R team of Peter Venn had another factor to deal with. A new sponsorship and development deal had been struck with Toyo Tyres only weeks beforehand, and the cars would be running for the first time on Toyo slicks (this in fact being Toyo's first production slick tyre!). This meant that the Friday Qualifying sessions (10am-Midday and 7:30pm-11:30pm) would be taken up with testing various suspension settings to suit the new tyres. The car was also slightly stymied by new noise regulations forcing fitment of a new more restrictive exhaust silencer.
Pete was sharing driving duties in the #145 Civic with Peter Venn, Dave Allan and Kai Riemer, a very rapid racer who, if you have recently bought a Porsche, might have instructed you on high speed driving techniques. Both Peter Venn and Kai would be driving stints in both Civics throughout the race.
"It became clear right away that the original setting on the car were not going to work, especially with the high track temperatures we were seeing. The Toyo tyres clearly had a lot of grip but the car was not using them optimally so we really made quite some significant changes to the set up to overcome issues of overheating in the front tyres."
With excellent support from Toyo, the changes meant that Pete could put in a 10:02.718 lap time, good enough for fifth in class. Incidentally, second, third fourth and fifth places were covered by less than 6 seconds (on a 15.8 mile lap!). However, the brand new Kissling Astra had a considerable advantage and qualified with a 9:38.013 lap time.
"We'll just have to hope the Astra is as brittle as it has been in recent races," said Pete. "We still struggle with understeer in the scorching sun here, but in the cooler night session, we found the tyres really start to work well so hopefully we can pick up time in the dark hours."
The #146 sister Venn Civic (driven by Jörg Chmiela, Franz Fabian, Kai Riemer, and Peter Venn himself), qualified with a 10:16.444, good enough for 8th in class.
As race day dawned, it was clear the hot weather was there to stay and, refreshed by a good night's sleep in Peter Venn's American "super motor home", the drivers were raring to go. Peter Venn would take the first stint, followed by Dave Allan and Peter.
As the lights turned green, the field roared away, led overall by the very impressive Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 of Lucas Luhr, Timo Bernhard, Mike Rockenfeller and Marcel Tiemann. This car would hold the lead throughout and win a memorable victory for Porsche.
In the heat of the cockpit, Peter Venn was hindered by a lack of airflow and decided to run a reserved pace to avoid any early disaster. Kai Riemer pushed the #146 car up the order and ahead of #145, but the order changed back again during the next few hours..
Dave Allan took over #145 and drove hard until he was forced to pit one lap early when an exhaust problem meant the cockpit was filling with fumes. Dave was almost overcome and practically fell out of the car, the team having to effect some rapid repairs.
Pete left the pit with the two cars running 4th and 5th in class, was able to move up to 3rd in class (29th overall) as the evening became cooler. However a split CV boot was throwing grease onto the front left tyre, "causing me a few interesting moments under braking" and this meant the #145 car lost around 25 minutes in the pits whilst the team sprang into action to rectify the problem at the end of Pete's run.
Dave Allan took the next run, the car having dropped to 7th in class and 51st overall and made progress as dusk became dark. Dave reported everything was find except second gear had disappeared during his stint, which was quite a problem with the Mercedes S, Dunlop Hairpin, the top of Hatzenbach, Adenauer Forst and Wehrseifen all being second gear corners.
Pete then drove from 11:30pm to 1:30am, handing over to Peter Venn, who informed him that he would have to drive a further stint at 3:30am as Dave was still suffering the effects of the earlier exhaust fumes and was sleeping in the motorhome!
"That was tough," Pete commented. "I really needed a good 4 hours sleep and of course there was no time to go to the motorhome so I had to catch an hour in the truck."
Nevertheless, with the car running well at 5th in class (36th overall) after Peter Venn came in, a good result was still on the cards, especially since the #146 car was running 3rd in class at that time. "I love driving the dawn stint," Pete smiled. "You drive through the smoke from the camp fires and can even smell the bacon cooking!"
Given a clear couple of laps, Pete could take the #145 car around in a 10:02.787, an equivalent lap time to qualifying, despite the lack of second gear, and moved up to 4th in class, just behind the sister Civic. "I didn't have to push. Track conditions we perfect, the tyres were working well and with second gear, we would have easily broken the ten minute barrier without fuss".
As Pete started the last lap of his stint shortly before 6am, the car was up to 27th place overall with no other mechanical problems than that of the gearbox. With 9 hours still remaining, and given that the car finished 22nd overall last year, the team were looking forward to a superb result. Unfortunately it was not to be. Scorching through around the Karussel and up to Hohe Acht, Pete caught a BMW E46 backmarker. What happened next is best told by the driver:
"I caught the BMW very rapidly but there was a Seat Cupra ahead and it was clear the BMW wanted to pass that, so I hung back. Through Wipperman and Eschbach, the Seat was quick and opened a gap, so I lined up the BMW for a safe pass between the two parts of Brünnchen. As we came around the fast left hander before Brünnchen, and were about to turn right, the BMW suddenly slammed on the brakes, As I did the same I could see the Seat had spun around and was heading into the barrier. I don't know if the BMW hit the Seat but I certainly couldn't avoid making contact with the back of the BMW. The pushed the radiator back and damaged it beyond repair."
Despite also losing the clutch, Peter drove the car back to the pits at speed, not knowing the extent of the damage, but it was clear when he hopped out that things were terminal. The team had only one spare radiator (this being a special item built for the car), and that spare was in the #146 car which was still running strong, having set a 10:01.860 lap time with Kai Riemer, albeit with a full complement of gears!
"I was gutted that we couldn't finish," Peter rued. "I have finished every 24 hour race I have entered here and elsewhere, so this was really harsh, also onthe team at ELR who worked so hard to prepare everything for this event."
The sister Civic continued to pound around without problems, and in the hands of Peter Venn, took the finish 3rd in class, and 15th overall, just two minutes behind the 2nd placed Kissling Astra. The class was won by the other new Kissling Astra which proved unstoppable this year, but which nevertheless was only one lap ahead of the Civic.
"I'd would like to thank Peter Venn and the team again for giving me this opportunity to drive the Civic; despite the podium, the outcome for the other car was not what we deserved but these things happen in motorsport. I hope we can find a way to drive this car at the Silverstone 24 hours in September because it would be awesome, especially knowing the British weather!"
