The Roaring Season

I see that the March 2013 [b]'48 Hour Maxi Endurance' [/b]in Spain now has 40 teams registered ... including a Seat Leon Super Copa entered by Dave Taylor's, Hampton Downs-based, 'Motorsport Services'.

This is going to be a bloody tough event! They're estimating that the race winner could cover 5,000kms in the 48 hours - [i]if[/i] they have a perfect race without incidents.

Teams can run 7 or 8 drivers [i](up to 8 hours each), [/i]or 5 or 6 drivers [i](up to 10 hours each). [/i]The minimum driving time for a driver must be 2 hours to be classified, and the maximum continuous driving time is 2 hours.

The entry list so far [i](there are still 31 more spaces available on the grid)[/i] is really diverse, ranging from Le Mans Prototypes and Porsche GT3R's, to a Viper, KTM X-Bow, Sirocco, BMW M3 E46, Caterham, and even a few Renault Clios.

So if you have a spare [b]€24,848 [/b]to enter; plus at least 5 drivers; plus a small fortune for consumables & logistics; then it would be great to see a classic racing! Maybe a Greenwood Corvette (Roger), a Mustang (Dale), a Camaro, or a McLaren M20 ... oh wouldn't that be great to see!!

In the late 1960's and early 1970's there was an event run at the Nurburgring called the "Marathon de la Route" which was an 84-hour race on the 28 km combined North and South circuits.

It had its origins years earlier as a rally called the Liege-Rome-Liege Rally which started and finished at Liege in Belgium. They didn't have special stages in those days, just impossible time schedules so the whole thing became a race. Eventually they weren't allowed to run it to Rome and back, so Zagreb and then Sofia(in Bulgaria) was substituted, making it even hairier.

In the mid-60's civilisation caught up with the organisers, and it morphed into a 3 1/2 day race, with teams of 3 drivers, for saloon and ?GT cars. The 1970 race was 86 hours for some reason and Porsche 914's took 1-2-3.

[url=http://postimage.org/][img]http://s6.postimage.org/6fc9dujqp/Marathon_d_l_Route_1970.jpg[/img][/url]

Hope I'm not offending anyone's copyright. Will remove immediately if I am.

Stu

Cost of fuel for running that long?

I think I got an email from one of the local motorsport services companies saying they were putting a team in....

Wow. Imagine how many drivers needed for each car & the support crews will be enormous. The logistics will be mind boggling.
Good luck with that!!

For those who think a 6-hour race is [i]a bit tame[/i]; a 12-hour race is [i]moderately challenging[/i]; 24-hours is [i]slightly tougher[/i]; then check this out ... [url=http://maxiendurance48.com/]http://maxiendurance48.com/[/url] ... and you thought that Le Mans was tough!