Race Report 1997
RAISING AWARENESS FOR THE IRISH MOTOR NEURONE DISEASE ASSOCIATION
1997 RACE REPORT
By Tony Dennison - Team Manager.
CAR: TSPP197
DRIVERS; FASTEST LAP RACE MANAGER; PIT MANAGER;
TONY DENNISON 1:25:124 MATT FEENEY MICK CURRAN
STEPHEN MAHON 1:24:538
PAUL GOLDRICK 1:25:838
PAUL BATES 1:24:654
Friday 18th July 1997 saw the TSPP197 hit the track for the first time against any competition. We were watching everybody and everything in an attempt to get through our first official practice session. A lot of people offered advice, some good some bad, and we soon realised we no longer had any friends in the pit lane. I can only say we got through the test session more confused than when we had started. The car was slow, very slow, and off we went changing everything we could, from jets to tyre pressures (BIG MISTAKE), but we felt we had too, qualifying was only three hours away.
After passing scrutiny we relaxed a bit and decided to go back to square one with what we had planned before listening to all the self-confessed experts. Out came the notebook and all the original settings were put back on the car in time for qualifying.
The rules state that each of the four drivers must complete three flying laps to qualify, so as soon as the pit lane opened we decided to go out. I was first; the difference to the car’s handling was enormous. As I drove out of the pit lane and down to the first corner I could not believe the handling of the car. In the test session I was lapping in the 1 minute 28 second bracket, but now the best I could manage was 1 min 32 seconds, I knew the pressure was on to bring the car back in one piece to let the other three drivers qualify, but had I lost my nerve? I pitted and Steve Mahon took over, I watched in horror, as the best Steve could do was a 1:33, he pitted and we both agreed that there was a problem with the steering. The car was brought back to the garage and we fount as a consequence of all the changes the tracking was totally off. We rectified it and Steve went back out, straight away he was lapping in 1:26 our fastest so far that day. Paul Goldrick was next out and got down to 1:27 before handing over to Paul Bates who got down to 1:26. I went back out for my second stint and was relieved to be in the 1:26 bracket also. After the others had completed their second stints we were fairly happy with a best qualifying lap of 1:26:133 which left us 28th out of the 32 teams.
The next day the 24 Hour race started at 2PM and by 2PM on Sunday we had gone through two engine changes and numerous pit stops for things like sticking accelerator, overheating, dead battery, broken fan, ignition timing, starter switch and the likes. But after all was said and done we had finished 26th in our first CITROEN 2 CV 24-HOUR RACE.
We packed up, swore never to do it again and went home. Two days later we were planning the 1998 race, that’s the problem with the race, one bitten you’re hooked.
The team would like to thank all our sponsors (listed below), family members and friends who selfishly gave up their time to help out throughout the weekend. As good as we drivers think we are, we could not function without that help, many thanks to one and all.