Following multiple agonising near misses, the Rockingham Slot Car Club have finally secured the hard-fought overall victory at the 10th edition DiSCA Le Mans 24 hours.
The Northants team secured the lead from lap two of the flagship endurance event and were never passed once for the following twenty four hours. Thats not to say it was easy, for most of the race the gaps were small and strong competition from DSCA, returning with the Rebellion R13 and Sports Carazing with the hand built Toyota TS050 meant that these three prototypes would be the only cars to achieve a race distance exceeding five thousand laps.
Late drama also developed as Rockingham suffered two significant issues within the last two hours, although by then the buffer they had built was enough to see them across the line ahead of second placed DSCA with a comfortable margin. Pole sitters Sports Carazing rounded off the podium to achieve their best Le Mans finish to date.
In LMP2, the early pace was established by Great Barr Slot Car, again returning with the Olifer supported Oreca 03. This time GBSC prepared the chassis themselves, flying in the bodies from Portugal. Scuderia Viking raced in P2 for the first time using the new Slotit Oreca 07, establishing themselves as the strongest contenders. Throughout the early stages the class lead was contested between these cars, but serious repairs were needed to the Viking car overnight. Such maladies forced them out of contention, leaving the East Birmingham club to take the honours.
LMGT was also a bit of a yoyo affair, where the quickest car from SRC Eindhoven suffered various problems throughout the race and affording the GAS Monkey Corvette multiple opportunities to seize the category lead. In the end it was Eindhoven BMW that would creep ahead and take the victory, from the GAS Monkeys in second place and Garage 27 achieving their first Le Mans podium in third.
Video coverage of the event can be found on the Youtube channels Johnny S, Track Fans TV and CarFunMostly.
