More than 50 cars took part in the annual Race of Remembrance event at Anglesey Circuit last weekend, with one car of particular interest to Highways News readers.
Held over the Remembrance weekend, Race of Remembrance was established by Mission Motorsport alongside the wider racing community and the wounded, sick and injured servicemen and women who use the sport to aid in their recovery.
The 12 hour endurance race began on Saturday and ran into the night, pausing for a Remembrance Service on Sunday morning. The car in question was driven by Clearway’s highways division general manager Simon Waterfall and among its sponsors were White Willow Consulting, whose founder Andy Graham was a key member of the pit crew, and HAAS Alert.
Simon Waterfall said:
“What a weekend of ups and downs – lots of downs. Firstly I wanted to thank Andy Graham from WHITE WILLOW CONSULTING LIMITED and Gareth Evans from HAAS Alert for the support for this event and please go and look at Mission Motorsport – The Forces’ Motorsport Charity give them a like or a follow and just maybe put your hand in your pocket to help towards their amazing work.
“Thursday testing went well until a blown gearbox that resulted in an 11pm swap out ready for qualifying on Friday. At the same time a new electronics issue we found on the clutch sensor meant a remote session with our coder to code out the need to use the clutch push to start.
“Qualifying came and we were in the mix ended up 8th overall out of 50 and P3 in our class. With all the work pre-event to make the fuel system endurance ready we had a real chance at a podium finish.
“At the race start I was in the car for the opening stint. The race start was great – we managed to find ourselves in P6 for the first few laps and then the problems started. The car cut out at 120mph up to the biggest breaking point on the circuit but I managed to pull off and reboot everyting and get going again. The aux drive belt broke and we lost charge and the water pump, so the temperature was 134 degrees. The belt breaking took out the crank seal so we had oil everywhere. with about eight heads in the engine bay spares were soon sorted and I was back out.
“We then had contact with a lower class car who didn’t judge the closing speed very well and then the aux belt let go for a second time in the night. We parked the car 30 minutes before the end of the first part of race to come up with a plan for spares collect. The plan ended up being driving back to the unit neaer Donington Park through the night for it to be fixed and back on track for the race start at 9am on Sunday. We set off at 11.30pm, arrived in Derby at 3am due to the M6 being closed but we got back to Angelsey for 6.30am.
“New parts were fitted and ready to go back out but unfortunatly the damage had taken its toll with further oil leaks and turbo boost problems. The team persisted and with a mighty stint by Michael Close at the end of Sunday we got the car home. We came home last of the runners, but all with big smiles.
This event isn’t about the racing really. it’s about community, belonging and a shared experience.”
Andy Graham added:
“All I can add is what a great team. I’ve watched endurance racing at Le Mans for many years but its even better in the pits, sweeping a mix of oil and rain away . Never give up is a cliché but the team didn’t.”
(Pics: Andy Graham)
