BANGKOK--24 Jan--ดาคอน อินสเป็คชั่น เซอร์วิสเซส
A Little race Team from Thailand left for Dubai in the start of January 2012 to compete in the Dubai 24 Hour Endurance Race, with cars and drivers from all over the world. The event is starting to get an international recognized status as one of the famous 24 Hour races, with many factory teams heading for the Dubai 24 Hour race every year. 2012 was not an exception, with drivers like Bernd Schneider, Jarooen Bleekemolen, Thomas Enge, and many other famous race drivers, and teams like AF Corse, Heico Motorsport, and Schubert Motorsport with the Saudi Falcon’s. The Team owner Thomas Raldorf started his preparations for the event back in August 2011, and felt he was well prepared when the car was shipped to the UAE in the start of December, but he latyer came to learn that racing a 24 Hour race is like nothing else, and the preparations are very comprehensive. The aim was to bring a full Thailand based team of Drivers and mechanics for the event, but due to flooding in Thailand and the Thai race calendar being shuffled around we ended up having 3 drivers from Thailand and 2 from Denmark.ie; Ekarat Wihawatprapa (Thailand), Pitsanu Sirimongkolkasem (Thailand),Thomas Raldorf (Thailand), Jakob Borum (Denmark) and Niels Borum (Denmark) The Team left for Dubai on the 7th of January, and spent the next days from the 8th to the 10th checking up on the car and doing the final preparations in Dubai at a local workshop close to the track. On the 11th the car went to the track where the first practice sessions was driven, and time was spent to make sure everything was running well. After the practice sessions it became clear that there was an issue with the Sensors in the car, and the fuel mixture was wrong, so time was spent of getting this right and the team again pulled a long all-nighter to get the car ready for qualifying the following day. In first qualifying session the team again had a fuel issue, and was not able to push, and the same in the second qualifying session, so they ended up last in their class, and has to start last on the starting grind the following day. The Team again pulled a long all-nighter and got everything sorted and in the morning warm up set their fastest lap of the event so far, and 9 seconds faster than qualifying. The race started at 14.00 local time in Dubai with 2 flying laps and a rolling start, and slowly the team moved its way upwards and was up to 7th place in class after the first 6 laps, and the team was now 3 second faster that they had been so far and was 2nd fastest in class on the still very slippery track. After the first 6 laps the team was passed the first time by the leading cars, and now needed to spent a lot of their time looking in the mirrors for the much faster A6 class with their Mercedes SLS AMG’s, Lamborghini’s & Porsches. One of the things the team had struggled with was a duel fuel tank system that had been installed a few days before the race to make sure they had a fuel capacity of 120 Ltr which was what was allowed, but since this had caused so many problems, one tank had been removed so they would now have to pit for fuel much more often than the other teams, but they had no choice. Until nigh fall the team was doing well and staying in 7th place and doing the same lap times as the teams in the 3rd, 4thm 5th and 6th places, but then when the dark fell over the track, more issues for the team showed up. The Team has installed a special rally type light bridge on the hood which was great but untested, so once it was on, it became apparent that the car was not able to produce enough power to the battery with the set-up they had so it ran the battery flat and the car had to be recovered back to the pit’s, where the alternator was changed as they thought this was the issue, but soon after that it was wrong again, and the team pitted and disconnected first 2 of the strong lights then later one all the strong lights, and then later on the new Xenon long beam lights and lastly they disconnected the second of the 2 fuel pumps just to make it work at night. A lot of time was spent in and out of the pits for this, and it meant the drivers had to drive slower to ensure no accidents as they struggled to see the road and corners in time. About 3 hours into the night, the ECU developed an issue, so every time the team pushed the car above 7000 RPM the ECU would shut down, and the driver would have to switch it on and off to get it working again. In the pits a lot of time went into think how to solve the problem, but because nobody was sure what was causing it it was decided to keep driving and doing laps, and hope that this would be enough as others might get problems bigger than them. As the sun came up in the morning the team was still in 7th place and looked like it would stay there, as none of the other cars had shown any sign of weakness during the night, but at 9 Am the 4th and 5th placed car was going in and out of the pits to try and solve problems, and at 10 Am the 6th placed car also had problems. The team talked about it and agreed to keep pushing with the limitations they had and hope that it would be enough. With 1 hour to go it looked like 6th would be possible and 5th also might be possible, but it was decided that finishing was more important as this stage, as finishing 5th or 6th would not make a big difference, but finishing or not finishing would be a big difference. So the drivers were told to back off and drive slower to take care of the car for the remaining 1 hour of the race, and if we caught them great and if we did not then that would be okay.With 10 mins to go we climbed to 6th place, and with a few mins to go they were within 4 laps of 5th place, but had run out of time, so they finished the race in 6th place in class. At the start of the event that had been a total of 75 cars, but many of them had not been able to finish and others had finished but had many problems during the race and spent a long time in the pits, so we ended up 46th overall. The Team had been into and out of the pits a total of 30 times, more than any other team in the race, and this was also noticed by the commentators of the event, but the fact that they had many stop but spent less time in the pits than many other teams, was also mentioned, and the mechanics was given praise for keeping the car going all the 24 hours. The Team was very happy after the event to have been able to finish such a long and hard event, and plans were made right away to join the 2013 Dubai 24 Hour event again, as they now knew much more and would be much better prepared for the next race in 2013. The Motorsports media was very interested in the little team from Thailand and the fact they had travelled all the way to Dubai to compete with the big name teams like Besaplast and S.I.G from Germany, and was also very interested in knowing more about Motorsport in Thailand in general as most of them had no idea how big motorsport in Thailand is. The Team would like to thank a number of Companies and people who made it possible for them to join the event and to keep going during the event, as they held with everything from Finances to Parts and Contacts: The Pizza Company, Raiden, B-Quik, Liqui Moly, Tourism Authority of Thailand, Unicar (D2 Suspension), RAAT, Sa-ing Garden & Khun Charoen Auamchan, Thon-Sticker, NFS, LAP 57, Spencer (SVDP Racing), James Kaye, Duel Racing and Creventic.For more information, please contact Thomas Raldorf Team Owner Mobile +66 81 377 1553
[email protected]
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