NLS Round 1 - New Names, Great Racing!

It was announced at the end of last year that the VLN would have a new name in 2020. The rather clumsy title “Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring” would be changed to the simpler “Nürburgring Langstrecken Serie”, and the first round of the series was originally scheduled for 21st March.

The Coronavirus pandemic meant that we had a lot longer to get used to calling it NLS rather than VLN, but importantly, it is only a change in name – as the preface to the regulations explains, this is “the biggest and most popular grassroots racing series worldwide and has been organised at the legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife since 1977”.

It was Creventic that got the “real racing” ball rolling in Portimão two weeks earlier with an admittedly sparse entry for their 24-hour race, and without detracting from the Dutch organiser’s efforts, it has to be said that events in Germany at the weekend were on an entirely different scale and provided an altogether more exciting spectacle.

One hundred and thirty-two cars eventually took the start for the 51st Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy as the NLS sprang into action, unfortunately without a soul to be seen in the grandstand opposite the pits, or in fact anywhere around the circuit. Remember, this is only another step towards “real racing” – we have a way to go yet. It is important – to me at least – that motor-racing remains a spectator sport. Having on-board cameras and slow-motion replays of spectacular incidents may bring it into the living room of the casual observer, but allowing the dyed-in-the-wool fan to get up close, to get autographs, and to feel the noise is vital.

What mattered most though, was that this was an excellent race. The entry in GT3 was strong, with Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche and Ferrari all being represented with genuine podium-scoring chances. The spectator enclosures may have been empty, but the track, as ever, was busy, and to make good lap times meant being sharp in the traffic – a skill on the Nordschleife as much now as always.

In the end, it came down to a race between just two cars – the #34 Walkenhorst BMW M6 and the #6 Team HRT AutoArena Mercedes AMG. More could easily have been involved – GetSpeed’s Mercedes, the Phoenix Audi R8, the Ferrari from Octane; they could all claim to have had the pace, but all dropped back. It is a sign of the strength of the series, that even in its opening round, there was enough interest in the leading two cars to keep the attention, helped by the different strategies being played out.

Team HRT (Haupt Racing Team) may be a new name, but it is hardly more than a renaming of the former Black Falcon team. Black Falcon may have withdrawn from the GT3 class, but the people remain, now under Hubert Haupt’s title and there should be no doubt that these people know what they are doing in the VLN, er, I mean the NLS. It was a long time since VLN-9 of 2019, but most people knew that Assenheimer and Engel were winners last time out.

In the Walkenhorst BMW, David Pittard made an energetic start and drove a spirited first stint in the initially damp conditions, before handing the car over to Dane Mikkel Jensen at the first stop. Patrick Assenheimer started the HRT Mercedes and went for a double stint, completing eight laps in the second shift compared to Jensen’s seven in the BMW. This meant that the Mercedes’ second pit stop would have to be longer than that of the BMW, but the idea (and it made sense to me) was that the time lost would be made up by having a shorter final pit stop, as there is more to be gained in the minimum pit stop time in the last 70 minutes of the race.

If you are not familiar with the normal pit stop arrangements at long-distance races on the Nordschleife, then it is best if you stop here and go and look up some descriptions of the changes that were implemented to deal with the requirements for social distancing. Instead of the normal pit lane, competitors had to wind their way through a series of cones and concrete blocks that had been set up in the paddock to allow each car to have its own working area. Refuelling would be done separately, in the normal pit lane. It all meant that pit stops would take far longer than normal, and the famous “Appendix 6”, which specifies the minimum pit stop times depending on the number of laps completed in the preceding stint was adjusted accordingly.

The pit stop time is measured from pit in to pit out, and it is the team’s responsibility to get it right. Driver and tyre changes were to happen in the team’s working area, before the car could be released to the refuelling area, where it might have to be held for a while longer, to ensure the minimum stop time was adhered to.

In Creventic’s 24h Series, the refuelling is always done in a separate area as well, but they do not use minimum pit stop times, so it is not a problem for competitors in that series. And with the long and winding road through the Nürburgring paddock, no-one had any previous data to rely on, new team or not. So there was quite a bit of learning going on during the race, trying to fine-tune the pit stop time to perfection.

Maro Engel, in the Haupt Mercedes, seemed to have a slight pace advantage over Jensen in the Playstation-sponsored BMW, but with Pittard getting back in for the final stint, it would still be a close-run thing. The other factor was the strategy: since Assenheimer had gone longer in the first half of the race, it meant that Engel’s final stop would be later – and therefore shorter – than the Walkenhorst stop to switch from Jensen to Pittard.

Sure enough, Mikkel Jensen brought the BMW in from the lead, at the end of 22 laps, David Pittard got in, and the car was underway again after a pit stop of 4m 50.068s (four seconds over the minimum time allowed). Engel pitted at the end of the next lap, by which time the minimum pit stop time had gone down to 4m 22s, but the Mercedes pit stop was 4m 19.879s, just over two seconds under the minimum. The previous two pit stops for HRT had both been almost five seconds slower than the minimum, whereas Walkenhorst were five and three seconds over the minimum on their first two stops. Small margins, yes, but important enough to chase.

Regulation 7.3.18 states that in the last 70 minutes of the race, stop and go penalties are converted into a time penalty of 35 seconds plus the amount of shortfall on the minimum pit stop time. Hence, as the race reached its nail-biting conclusion, news filtered through that a 37-second time penalty would be applied to the HRT car. Maro Engel overtook David Pittard for the lead on the road on lap 25 and then set the fastest lap of the race on lap 26. But time was running out, and when the chequered flag was shown at the end of lap 27 the gap between the Mercedes and the BMW was just ten seconds, which meant that the BMW was awarded the win after the application of the 37-second penalty to the Mercedes. Disappointment for the Haupt Racing Team, joy for Walkenhorst Motorsport, and a thrilling encounter for the impartial observer.

Behind these two were more great battles: unfortunately, contact for the Phoenix Audi being driven by Michele Beretta dropped it down the order but a stirring drive from Fabian Schiller in the GetSpeed Mercedes enabled him to take third place on the last lap from René Rast in the Car Collection Audi.

But even all that only really scratches the surface of the race. As always, there were classes to be won and intense racing all the way down the field. It’s what proper racing (“real racing”) is all about! In two weeks’ time we have a double-header, with NLS-2 taking place on the Saturday, and NLS-3 on the Sunday. Now that will be intense!

Some Reflections Since the Portimao 24 hours

Okay, I will be honest: the main reason for this post is to prevent the previous article from being on top of the list when you first come to my blog’s ‘home’ page. But publishing a couple of articles per month when there was normal racing activity taking place used to be normal activity, and since a proper race has now taken place, I don’t really need to make any excuses. Do I?

First, however, it would be inappropriate if I failed to mention the many messages of support that my previous post prompted. They are all very much appreciated and I am grateful to you – whether you actually sent a message or not – the fact that you take the trouble to read or listen to me means a lot and all goes to aid both my mood and my recovery. Thank you to you all, from the bottom of my heart.

So, the Portimao 24-hours – was it a success? Insofar as the event took place at all, most definitely it was. Protocols were put in place, were seriously enforced and from a logistical and administrative point of view, were effective. People showed up – maybe not as many as promised, but the Creventic organisation made every effort and made sure that everyone’s concerns were addressed.

As a spectacle, though, fifteen cars taking the start for a 24-hour enduro did not get the pulse racing in the same way that most Creventic races do. It was a shame that the only GT3 opposition to a Herberth whitewash (the HTP / Winward Mercedes) was out of the race before three hours were elapsed. Equally disappointing was the gearbox repair that the no. 91 Renauer/Renauer/Bohn/Allemann Porsche needed, which meant that the no. 92 Porsche was not under serious challenge thereafter for overall honours. It gave a well-deserved win to the “lesser” Herberth crew comprising Tim Müller, Jürgen Häring, Marco Seefried, Taki Konstantinou and Michael Joos. All the more interesting as Joos drove for longer than any other driver in the car, yet didn’t actually get in until the tenth hour of the race!

The race in the TCE division was better, but again, among the six starters it was clear from relatively early on that it would be a race between just three cars – the Red Camel Cupra, the ComToYou Audi and the Autorama Golf. Indeed, these three provided a good race, with each recovering from problems. A ten-minute delay for Red Camel compared to twenty-minute stops for ComToYou and Autorama left them well-placed with six hours remaining. Unfortunately for the Dutch squad, some debris dislodged the radiator, which led to an overheating engine and retirement, leaving the battle between the experienced Swiss Autorama squad and the Belgian ComToYou team. Antti Buri may not be a household name outside the Creventic and German TCR series, but his pace and the experience of his co-drivers were in no doubt, and WTCC and WEC stars Tom Coronel and Nathanael Berthon had to be content with second place in the division.

I may be guilty of looking at the race through somewhat rose-tinted spectacles though. Just as 15 starters doesn’t really excite the spectator, only 10 cars running at the finish was, with the best will in the world, dull. But this race wasn’t about the spectator. This race was about getting the ball rolling. In the run-up to it, I had a lot of time to poll various contacts – the majority agreed that it was all too soon, particularly for those (travelling from outside continental Europe) for whom travel restrictions were more onerous. As a ‘proof of concept’ and a test of protocols, how to make them work in practice and to allow a racing team to be a team, and all that entails, it worked well.

Having myself been isolated for three months, I know how refreshing it can be to have human contact; a laugh, a joke, to see the smile break across someone’s face. Social distancing and the wearing of face masks make this more difficult, but surely it is better than being alone in front of a computer competing against an unseen opponent?

I don’t really want to take sides in the “Real vs Virtual” debate. As I have already mentioned, I have had the opportunity to talk to various people over the months of my enforced incarceration, and I certainly understand both sides of the argument. For the professional racing driver, needing to keep their wits and reactions sharp, their ‘name in the frame’ as far as media awareness is concerned and their competitive instincts honed, getting a sim racing rig set up and learning the nuances of driving one is just another of their jobs as a professional.

For commentators, who to my mind are crucial to enable the consumer of the virtual race livestreams to get a full experience of the ‘event’, they have provided an opportunity to “keep the eye in”, as one of my colleagues said to me. To say nothing of a bit of much-needed income, I would think.

What surprised me most was the involvement of the ‘backroom boys’ – no gender favouritism implied, but those race engineers and team managers – that get involved in tuning and optimising the virtual cars so that the drivers can get the best out of them. Just like in real life! “Don’t forget it’s only a game,” I reminded one race engineer friend of mine, partly in jest, I admit.

“After all the work, it’s not a game anymore,” came the somewhat terse reply. “I’ve been working 16-hour days for the last week-and-a-half”. When it gets to that stage, you can see his point.

On the opposite side are the drivers who were in Portimao, drivers for whom the real thing is, well, exactly that – the real thing. And I don’t think that a single one of the folk that I did talk to would choose to race virtually if there was a chance to race for real. It is just, as so many people said, “too soon yet”. But it is much harder to say that, and it will become harder still to say that, now that one race has taken place and further races are scheduled to follow.

What race organisers decide to do with spectators is a whole different question, and not one that I shall cover here. Nor can we forget that the big races, by which I mean the 24-hour events at Le Mans, Spa and Nürburgring, attract an audience from far further afield than the very Europe-centric Portimao 24-hours, and in massive numbers. Taking responsibility for scheduling (or cancelling) events of that magnitude requires very broad shoulders indeed. The sooner there is some clarity, the better.

Strange Times, Unexpected Events, Difficult Decisions

Timing, they say, is everything, and over the years mine has sometimes left a little to be desired. So it was, that on March 23rd this year, when the UK lockdown was announced to minimise the risk of spreading the Coronavirus, I was in the A&E department of our local hospital having severe chest and back pains investigated. Due to a niggling but incidental chest infection, I was immediately isolated as a potential Covid-19 patient, and although the test came back negative, both I and the medical experts were left with the lingering suspicion that it might all be down to Corona after all.

Later that same week, after test results had been fully analysed, came the phone call that no-one ever wants to receive. “Obviously, we would rather be able to tell you this face to face,” said the voice at the other end of the line, “but with the current pandemic situation, we are unable to see all our patients as we would normally.” The chap went on to say that their tests suggested that I had multiple myeloma, and that they would be referring me on to the oncology department for further tests to confirm what was going on.

As I was still in a great deal of pain, which had been getting steadily worse despite taking all the painkillers available from my local GP, I was actually glad to have something which might explain it. For around six weeks, I had been taking ever-increasing doses, but not addressing whatever was causing the pain, and neither my GP nor the hospital could provide an explanation. Multiple myeloma at least gave me something to Google with.

“Hey Google, what’s myeloma?”

“Multiple myeloma, also known as myeloma, is a type of bone marrow cancer. Bone marrow is the spongy tissue at the centre of some bones that produces the body's blood cells.”

So here I am, a cancer patient. What should I do? I am not one of those people who lives their life in the public eye of social media. On the other hand, my work in motor sport – particularly for Radio Show Limited and its network of channels – has ensured that there are a lot of people out there who know about me and know what I do. And there may be readers of this blog that I have never met, who care about what is going on.

This is not an easy piece to write. At the moment, I am in the middle of a programme of treatment, and do not have a clear idea of what state I will be in at the end of that programme. Importantly, though, I am much improved now, compared to where I was when I began the treatment, although I am still far away from being able to undertake very many normal, everyday tasks. The medical professionals tell me that remission is a real possibility and that there is every chance that I should be able to return to ‘normal’ at some point – but, a bit like life after the Covid-19 lockdown, I wonder if we will we have to reconsider what we mean by ‘normal’?

Nevertheless, it does raise the question of what I should do now? Having become fully self-employed at the beginning of last year, I had high hopes of all kinds of interesting projects for this year. My illness gives me the opportunity to reflect on my mortality though. Needless to say, none of the professionals was prepared to tell me how long I might live, but in such circumstances your thoughts inevitably turn to those things that are important in life.

Yes, motor-racing has been my passion virtually my whole life long, but is it really that important? Do I really have to stay up all night and work out fuel consumption or tyre use? Or is my family more important? What about doing some travelling to see some of the sights of the world, rather than just the pit garages, paddocks and media centres of race circuits near and far?

I’ve never really been one to set myself targets or objectives, and then go all out to achieve them, but I can look back on a life that has seen an awful lot and experienced many things. I have been to more than one hundred 24-hour car races. I’ve seen the Indianapolis 500, F1 Grands Prix in five different countries (and decades) and been to the Le Mans 24-hour race 39 times consecutively. I’ve been able to commentate on the Public Address at British (or European) GPs at Silverstone, Brands Hatch and Donington Park. I’ve worked in the pit garage with the class-winning team at the Spa 24-hours and run the strategy for the team that came second overall (and first in class) at the Zolder 24-hours. On top of that, I have met some of the heroes of the motor-racing world, got to know many of them quite well, and can call some of them my friends. That’s looking back - I’m not even dead yet, so opportunities exist to add to those experiences. The difference is now that I realise I have a choice about what I see and where I go. The choices may have been restricted, but they are still there and with a bit of luck I will still be in a position to make them.

I am getting ahead of myself though. In terms of my treatment, it is still early days. For now, I have to be patient and see what happens over the next few months. After that, you may see me popping up at a race circuit somewhere – hopefully if I do, then I will be doing something useful. If not, then I may just be there enjoying myself. On the other hand, I may decide that there are other things that I should be doing – such as being at home, enjoying the simpler things in life or exploring New Zealand (for example), discovering more of this marvellous world that God has given us. Maybe I will turn this blog into a travelogue – in any case, I will stay positive; it is my nature.

Watch this space.