Post race thoughts from Michael Cotti Team Leader - Paul Hogan.
After months
of planning and preparation for CLM 2104 it was finally all over and the Michael
Cotti - Penrite team has returned to the UK in high spirits after spending
a tremendous week at Le Mans. Without a
doubt, the return to ‘normality’ was something we were not really looking
forward to as how could everyday life compare to the thrill of what we had
achieved by racing at the Le Mans Classic?
To discover
where this particular journey started we need to wind back to June 2013 and the
Le Mans 24 hours race proper. Duncan
Wiltshire of Motor Racing Legends had invited me to take part in the supporting
race he organises for the ACO . Needless
to say I jumped at the chance and I offered the drive to John Sykes and Barry
Sidery Smith with Paul Gerring acting in support. The car ran faultlessly and we had a great
time there but it was on the way back that the idea of running a team of three
cars at the following year’s Classic event began to take shape. Paul’s car had already run at the Classic in
206 and 2008 and so was an obvious candidate for the team. In August, whilst competing in the Gold Cup
at Oulton Park, I ran into Tim Stamper, who now owns OKV777, the very first TR2
to compete at Le Mans. Tim was very
supportive of the idea but sadly he was unable to commit to the team as he was
still sorting out the finances of his late father’s estate.
Not long
after the Gold Cup, I had a ‘phone call from Terry Smith who by chance had been
doing some work for Penrite Oil and were thinking of ways to promote their new
range of classic oils. Terry knew I was
keen to race the TR again and so I was asked to prepare a proposal outlining
the various options to the Penrite Oil Company that would enable them to enter
the classic racing scene. I tabled three
options to them and entering a high profile race like Le Mans with its wider
European connections appealed to them but could we get an entry?
As the TRR’s
undisputed ‘King of Blagg’ I of course said “Yes, no problem” but I then had to
enter into a steady flow of correspondence with Peter Auto, the organisers of
the Classic in order to bring this about.
After months of negotiation, our entry was finally confirmed in January
but still with only two cars. With only
days to go before the entry list closed Neil Fender finally got his act
together and became our third team member with his TR2. We now had three cars entered in three
different grids which would give spectators the opportunity to see TR’s racing for
over 9 hours of track time. Something
which hadn’t happened since the works team was there in the 1960’s.
The team
piggy backed onto the Register’s Castle Coombe track day for testing but it proved
rather disappointing. Paul Gerring’s car ran well but was damaged in the
paddock after accidentally hitting the ramps on his trailer. (Couretesy of ‘Neil Should have gone to
Specsavers Revington!) My own car wasn’t
even allowed to run having failed the stringent 100DB noise test by just THREE
decibels.
Two weeks
later I took my car to Goodwood where it sailed through their noise test but
while accelerating down the pit straight towards Madegwick corner there was an
unexpected BANG! and the car came to stop.
It transpired that the distributor drive skew gear had stripped the
teeth off the camshaft. As debris may
have gone into the engine a full strip down and rebuild was necessary which was
undertaken by Matt Smith of S&M engine services.
By strange
coincidence, Paul Gerring was also having trouble with his camshaft having run
its bearings. We both solved our
camshaft problems by fitting new cams supplied by Steve Hall of TR Enterprises which
are ground to their own specification.
They proved to be very effective and delivered a good spread of power
and torque throughout the rev range.
Having finally
sorted our engine problems out there was no time left to undergo any further
testing at Bruntingthorpe as we had planned. The team had arranged to meet up
at Portsmouth to catch the 10.30pm overnight ferry to France. On arriving at
the dockside it was like joining a classic car meeting with all sorts of
classics and competitors cars lined up on the dock. We eventually set sail for France in high
spirits and floated on quite a bit of beer as yet another English invasion of
the continent was under way. Next
morning we made our leisurely way to Le Mans with an obligatory stop at a café
on the way for breakfast. Unfortunately,
they had run out of Croissants and so in a ‘Coals to Newcastle’ moment I
rustled up some we had brought with us from our local Sainsbury’s!
We arrived
at Le Mans to find a good number of transporters parked up already waiting for
the gates to open at 2.00 pm. Needless
to say French officialdom was to the fore and no one was allowed in! By four
o’clock tempers were getting frayed as it was now well over 30 degrees. The British stoically queued up and awaited
their turn. The French did not. We
finally got into the site at 7.00pm to find our advance guard of ladies had
secured a decent sized plot for our team
which eventually comprised of the 3 x race cars, 4 x trailers, 3 x tow cars, an American RV motor home , a
vintage Bentley, Phil’s TR3S a couple of
other cars and a motor scooter. All this kit might sound impressive but in the
equipment stakes we were definitely nearer to the bottom of the pecking order
than at the top. Some of the rigs other teams brought along had to be seen to
be believed.
Thursday was
devoted to admin and scrutineering. All three cars sailed through the appendix
K safety checks but when I went to have my entrants licence checked the
organisers refused to accept it on the grounds that it was only valid for the
UK and they would not allow us to race!
Sacre Blue! I pointed out the
official that the licence WAS in fact valid as it had an endorsement issued by
the FIA and the MSA that said it was ‘valid
for historic international events’ and was this not indeed an International
historic event? “Non!” Came the reply. “It is a UK licence and you cannot race”
The scene
was now set for a re enactment of Agincourt with me asking which part of ‘valid
for international historic events’ don’t you understand and I demanded to see a
higher authority. Eventually after much going back and forth to confer they
capitulated (don’t they always?) and I moved on to the next admin desk for some
more paper work and fingerprinting.
Meanwhile, John Sykes and Neil Fender were standing behind me when we
heard a lound but rather strangled scream from another competitor who was
waiting by the desk I had just left. John thought he was also having an argument
with the French over his licence but sadly, it turned out that he was having a
massive heart attack brought on by stress and had collapsed on the floor. Given my own recent heart scares I can only
sympathise with him as French admin and officialdom is enough to give anyone a
heart attack.
Thursday
evening saw the team meet up with the MG boys for a very informal dinner at
Ecommoy. As one would expect there was
the traditional inter team rivalry between the two Marques but the banter was
very light hearted and a great night was had by all.
Friday
morning saw the drivers briefing. As
usual it was conducted in French and English – the race is predominately an
English affair with a smattering of other nationalities. This was not without humour and all the
English speakers laughed in the right places. The French remained silent even
when the joke about not driving in the organiser’s garden was told in
French. (Well we all thought it was
funny).
Practice is
split into two sessions, daylight and night time. Our first slot was absolute chaos. There was nothing wrong with the car but the
pit lane discipline that is so necessary at Le Mans was completely absent. Other teams parked in our allocated garage
and blocked our car in making the obligatory driver change and absolute
shambles. It is of course important to
get the driver change absolutely spot on as there are pit lane penalties for
speeding and leaving the pits too early. There is a 60kph speed limit in the pit lane
and the TR3S doesn’t have a speedometer.
You also have to be stationary for 60 seconds so the minimum time you
should take is 90seconds but anything longer costs you time and track
position.
The night
time practice session was much better but it was the first time John Sykes had
driven there at night and the transition from the bright lights of the pit area
to the absolute darkness of the Mulsanne Straight made for some ‘interesting’
driving. As John says in his post
session interview, it was the scariest thing he has ever done!
The race
itself follows the traditional 24 hour format with each grid or plateau split
into three 43 minute races, each of which is roughly 8 hours apart. Kick off is at 5.00pm on the Saturday and
ends 24 hours later on the Sunday afternoon.
For one race in each grid the drivers are allowed to sprint across the
track but the other two races are by a rolling start. Our team would be racing in Grids 2, 3 and 4 but
with each car in a different collection paddock. This would make communication
between the three TR crews difficult and so we each had independent pit crews
to handle the driver changes.
The
Fender-Broad TR2 was first off at and Guy Broad set a cracking time of 6min .01seconds. My own TR3S was next and we also had the Le
Mans Start to contend with. As Barry
Sidery-Smith had done this piece of theatre many times before I gave John
‘Syko’ Sykes for the honour. As the time
for the race came near the stewards came into the paddock to collect the cars
to the pre grid but of John there was no sign.
A quick phone call to him found him still sitting in his motor home! He
was convinced he was doing the second stint and so he had to run to the
collecting grid on the Buggati circuit and do a ‘Superman’ style change into
his racing overalls in full public gaze – there is never a ‘phone box handy
when you want one is there? Take it from
me, seeing Syko getting into his Nomex underwear is not a pretty sight!
However, we made the change over with just minutes to spare but it wasn’t a
good way to prepare for a race.
After a
difficult Le Mans style start Syko then put in three good laps and our driver
change worked well. Barry then put in a
really fast sub 6minute lap but due to an error on refuelling he ran out of
petrol on his last lap!
Meanwhile,
Paul Gerring, Carl Kidel and Ernie Cole had arrived to take over our pit for
their session with the TRS which also performed faultlessly. While Barry and John went off to get some much
needed rest Tony Jeanes and I made our way back to our paddock to retrieve and service
the car as our next session would be at 4.00 am in the morning. With petrol only available from the
organisers at £6+a litre – yes really- it was costing over £200 to fill the TR
up and each 13km lap was consuming a gallon of fuel. With no fuel available in the paddocks the
officials told us to get some jerry cans and take them to the refuelling
point. – Which we did but the officials
at the refuelling point would have none of it and told us to drive the car
there. In his perfect French, Tony
explained to them it was rather difficult to drive a car without petrol but
they were having none of it. It seems
there are regulations and then there are French regulations! In the end Dave Solomans and his fellow TR
people from Wensum Group appeared like ghosts in the night and helped us to
push the car down to fuelling point in the pit lane where I was relieved of yet
another £200!
Meanwhile, the
weather was starting to begin deteriorating badly and sometime around 2.00 am
the heavens opened and lightning filled the sky. It would be a very wet and dangerous race if
the weather continued like this.
The sound of
engines being run up brought our paddock back to life. Barry Arrived for his first stint at the
wheel and we set off for the start line paddock with me holding an umbrella to
keep the rain off. It would be a rolling start this time behind a pace car and
so a fast first lap was envisaged. We
were not disappointed and Berry came in right on time for the driver change
over. By literally pulling Barry out of
the seat, we strapped John in and he set off for his first ever night
race. The result can be seen of the TRR
web site as Wayne Scott interviewed him right afterwards.
The 2nd
hand over to the TRS pit crew was straightforward and we went off for some much
needed sleep. Not that we got any but
following a quick breakfast we went back up to the paddock for our final
session at midday. Once again Barry would start the race with Syko taking the
chequered flag. This was a truly great
race with real drama on the final lap as the leading Aston Martin DB4GT spun
just before the pit straight and allowed the Lotus 11 which was following him
an unexpected win.
Our own
results were nothing less than fantastic.
We entered the race expecting nothing more than with hopes to complete
the course without bending either car.
With 70 plus cars on each grid and large speed and power differences
between the top line cars and ourselves we never expected to finish anywhere up
the grid placings. Moreover, despite one
or two problems with the TR2 and TRS all three cars finished without a mark on
them. Also, because our pit changes were right on target we didn’t score any
penalties and we ended up with two 3rd. in class positions. A great result and all credit must go to the
drivers who achieved this for us and Penrite.
As for oil consumption, I was frankly astonished that we didn’t have to
add a drop. The oil was virtually as
clean as it was when we put it in the car and there was never any drop in oil
pressure. We were of course using
Penrite’s top grade ‘Ten Tenths’ racing oil but all other lubricants were
Penrite standard products.
I and the
rest of the team are deeply indebted to Penrite for without their support we
could never have entered CLM in the first place. I would also like to acknowledge the support
given by Phil Tucker and his company, Tucker EMS. Phil, in his role as Vice Chair of the TR
Register, also arranged to provide
material support in the form of a pit trolley, fireproof overalls and pit
boards. I must also heap praise upon Wayne
Scott whose vision and enthusiasm enabled members to view the action at Le Mans
from the comfort of their own homes. I
don’t really know how this sort of stuff works so as far as I’m concerned it’s
a black art practised by teenagers and therefore a form of magic. Finally,
I extend my thanks to the drivers and all the other members of the team
who pitched in and made it a truly memorable week at la Sarthe.
Paul Hogan.
For Team
Penrite & Michael Cotti Racing.
The final
results were as follows
Triumph TR2
|
1955
|
Race 1
|
Race 2
|
Race 3
|
Total time
|
|
57th on Index
|
1:23'55.641
|
38'10.299
|
38'21.127
|
2:40'27.069
|
||
52nd scratch
|
57:45.000
|
44:52.712
|
51:08.170
|
2:33:45.882
|
||
77 starters
|
Fastest Lap
|
135.9kph
|
Triumph TR3 S
|
1959
|
Race 1
|
Race 2
|
Race 3
|
Total time
|
|
37th on index
|
56'44.994
|
44'33.422
|
44'14.541
|
2:25'32.958
|
||
41st scratch
|
5
|
57:00.000
|
46:57.901
|
52:46.057
|
2:36:43.958
|
|
75 starters
|
Fastest lap
|
138.5kph
|
116.6kph
|
117.5kph
|
Triumph TRS
|
1961
|
Race 1
|
Race 2
|
Race 3
|
Total time
|
|
38th on index
|
55'45.437
|
55'54.665
|
51'40.800
|
2:43'20.902
|
||
24th scratch
|
55:45.437
|
50:01.992
|
45:48.127
|
2:31:35.556
|
||
75 starters
|
Fastest Lap
|
137.7kph
|
137.8kph
|
For more on the Le Mans Classic Triumph Team see TR Action magazine, available free to all members of the TR Register.
