By Rasmus Johansen, aka Kyian

Our little trip to Holland, more specifically Leeuwarden, has started, where the last LMS race is run as a 9 hours endurance race. Vi started nicely Friday morning, but as usual Henrik wasn’t ready. Vi got away at 10 AM, went by Keld’s house, then on to Haderslev to pick up Jan. We learned something new here, the only drive-in Bakery in Denmark is here. More of these…

To make the trip short, we arrived in Leeuwarden at 6:30 PM at the address of where the race was to take place, but as the faciclities didn’t open til 8 PM we ran by our hotel, checked in and then to the bar for a cold beer and lots of fritjes and toasts – that took care of dinner. We were at the club around nine and got on to the training, talking and so on. We saw where things were going, but kept the high spirits an were still convinced that we would win it all.
Afterwards we went to the bar, where we learned something more, the secret is Baco – Bacardi and Cola, this word was yelled lots of times, and if nothing else everybody down there can say one thing in Danish and that is skål. After a while we succeed in emptying the bar for Bacardi, which was quite sad. But no more than we went on to Faco’s – Four Roses and Cola.

Saturday morning we got up much too early in relation to when we went to bed, but the track opened at 8 AM and qualifying was at 11. I started nicely and had to show what we Danes could do, but pole was set by Dennis Vogel, with a tim of around 5,76xx, cloesely followed by another team with a couple of hundreds. I set a nice time of 6,25 with about 0,1 up to the next team.

Now the start went and I was to run on lane 3, where we started great with a 3rd place after the first stint, but then I was moved to one of the outer lanes, where I lost some laps, but by luck it stuck by a few meters, from here we just went, we drove a lot and had a lot of fun. In the fourth stint, where Christian was running lane 4, he immediately set a time of 6,188, which held a long time for our team as the best. After this Jan was driving in lane 2, it later showed that he did his best laptime of 6,284 in this lane. Nice and quetly we started to feel more comfortable with the track and we har reached 1048 laps with only 150 laps to the nearest…

Now to the next heat where Christian started in lane 4 again, he proved to have more more hidden forces in him, now that it was getting dark, he mad a time of 6,112, but alsa it was the same stint where the car had to go to the pits to have the lights fixed, as there were no life here, this cost us 36 laps, before the wire was fixed and we were ready to race again. After Christian, Jan got the honors of lane 1, which is not the easiest because of the many sharp corners. This was at about 6:30 PM and 20 minutes, Keld was goin in to end the day, he ended up in the two other outer lanes with these laptime 6,440 and 6,4. As of now we had a little more than 200 laps up to the closest competitor and maybe some 270-280 up to Racing for Holland in first position. We were at 1518 laps and a bit.

At 8 PM the race ended and we all went to a Chinese restaurant where ew had wok food, mongoloan barbecue, this was quite good, and laid a good bottom in our stomachs. After this war stories were exchanged, most were probably true…The going out for dinner is a tradition they have, and has been for many years, at the same restaurant. As the time drew closer to midnight and the place was closing, it was time for us to move on, from here we ended up at the bar we knew so well, and to our satisfaction they har restocked on Bacardi so we could have our Bacos., as Tamar said at some point: “What are you saing when you’re empty – Baco!!!”

The time got close to 2 AM and most were going to bed, so we decided to do the same. The alarmclock rang at [Censored] o’clock, and it was hard to pull yourself together, but we succeded, had breakfast, and were as fresh as you can be at that time of night. But we went down to the club with high spirits and what we otherwise brung. But when you are as tired as we were at this time, thee quite optimal is to start with 4 hours racing in the dark, nothing is better. At least they had a bar next door where there was some welldeserved coffee.

Well; Henrik started driving, and for some reason the track felt better, or maybe it was just us having slept on it and learned it’s spots. Anyway Henrik started for full blast, and for the 3 time we got a 3rd spot, out of 4, so spirits were quite high on the Danish tesm. After Henri, I was to drive, and had the honors of lane 2, here we succeded again to make a 3rd place, with only a few meters down to Team Virage, Gert Klinge’s team. For the first time one of the rest of us succeeds in making it under 6,2 – 6,168. Now the leading teams were around the 2000 laps, and when they strted driving no more than 1-2 laps parted 1st and 2nd place, 3rd place was a bit behind, while 4th and 5th fought about the position with only a few laps between them. In front were RfH and Weam Team fighting. Now their laptimes were slowing down to only 5,8, while we were beating around at super laptimes of 6,2 and 6,3 – but what the hell – we had fun.

The night went by and we went from 16 min heats to 10 min heats, and Henrik went in to drive, and here he is rolling round leisurely at 6,122 as the fastest, but all of a sudden he crashes the magic wall and makes 6,084, the celebration would take no end, it was so big that the Dutchmen almost started clapping – almost. This remained Henrik’s best time, and the best Team time, and it was made in the first stint in the last heat.

Nice qnd quiet from now on, Keld was getting ready, he, too was warm, and he did his best laptime of 6,171. At our last stint, which Rasmus was driving, the Danish flag was mounted on the car, to be held high the last two minutes of the race. This caused huge applauses from all.

Well the race continued no matter our place in the classification. Weam Team who had been breathing RfH in the neck, regrettably had to take their car out, as it had broken, this cost them quite some laps, and thereby the fight for 1st place. RfH ran into a few problems, too, so they fell a bit back, which meant that a new team was coming up, this was Team Matchbox, who had being doing so well that they were now equal, where 3200 laps had been raced. It was so wild to see how close it could be, but only 40 laps behind the the next to teams were with only one or two laps between them.

Before the ultimate stint, RfH was in the lead with 8 laps, but were going in lane 2, where Matchbox were in lane 4, which is the fastest – and then the chase was on. Matchbox drove nicely and quietly in on RfH. This end got more and more exciting, people were glued to the screen and around the track, while the commentator who were sitting up at Race Control, constantly letting all know what was happening, how they were in relation to eachother, and if something was gained by the different teams. With only 3 minutes to go something happens to RfH, that just must not happen, the spoiler falls off, this has to be there, so it gets glued fast and painlessly, not much is lost, but shortly after it falls off again, now other methiods must be applied: taped to the rear window it doesn’t look good, but it works, and with only one minute to go, Matchbox is not far away, they were steadily pulling in on Tamar, who was driving for RfH. Time now started to go slowly, but alas Matchbox were pressing too hard and de-slotted once, which resulted in a gap of 2 laps…

Everybody were happy and congratulated the winners with thir welldeserved victory, which they had to fight hard for.
Now the time came for trophies, as it was the last race of the series, all had to be presented, drivers and teams and todays race. We started with todays racem where Team Vikings was called up, because we had certainly deserved a trophy due to our great 9th place, so we were happy, especially Christian who got to take the trophy home. (there were trophies for all teams)

Now time came to do our bye-bye’s, it has all of a sudden gotten to be 7 PM, so we did the kissing and hugging, and see you agains to old and new friends we have met. Outta there at 7:30 – 8 PM, heading for Denmark. We had calculated on hitting the autoband with the pedal to the medal, but the fog thought better, and we were rolling around with about 100 kmh. So we did almost 800 km in nice thick fog. At about 10PM we pulled in for a bite and go juice, in order to make it the rest of the way.

We had otherwise a great trip home with music from the 80’s so we can all say that we had a great weekend. So to all of you out sitting out there with a litlle travelslotcarsoulwantstodriveabroadinyou, get out there on the German autobahn and go. Pictures will be posted and a bit of editing may take place, but most important is to get it online fast, and you must say that it is, since this is written at 235 kmh on the Autobahn. (a short break in the fog)
Now I will find my bed


(Translated in the best spirit by Henrik)

it was nice to have you guys overhere and i hope to meet you again (overhere or overthere)
greetz erwin

Hope that the 550 was good for some fun. As I understand it is now ondergoing stage 2, stripping and a heavy diet may do some good.

Hopefully see you guys in Uden again.

It was good for a whole weekend's worth of fun well actually two weekends and a sprint race - it is now at 35g incl the 4 diodes - I haven't dissolved the epoxy glue, probably a good thing since the carbon glue is epoxy, too..

Dear Henrik,

To my opion, your car was understeared, at the Leeuwarden track. You could have solved this problem with "more wheight to the front" adjustments. Just try it in practise, don't hesitate some research per track.

You mentioned that at the time, but I didn't want to change it in the middle of the race - but you are right - it needs to be tested

The car was already weighing in at 245grams!!