After weeks of preparation the Fiesta Endurance race lived up to expectations. An exciting race from start to finish; our MMS Team 14 finished second, just 0.06 seconds behind the winners. It was incredibly close after 6 hours of racing! Myself and Niall were driving MMS Team 10 along with Barry English and Michael Cullen. Niall did a good job during a wet qualifying to take pole ahead of the two Blackchurch cars but only a 0.032 of a second separated the top 3. We were delighted to have 4 teams within the top 7 - Results here. It was set up to be a close fight! As 12 O Clock came round the track was drying fast. A quick adjustment of the pressures on the grid and we were all ready to go! Less than 10 seconds into the six hour race Niall’s right front brake hose failed, leaked fluid and the brake pedal went towards the floor at the first corner. Niall stayed on the track but was losing places. The brakes were getting worse so he no choice but to pit. As he entered the pits the brake pedal went completely to the floor again and he hit the pit wall! He managed to get it back to the pit garage but at this point the LF brake pads were on fire as they were taking all the braking force...needless to say the fire extinguisher was put to good use! Our mechanics began to fit a new wishbone, radiator and brake hose. My attention turned to our other teams. After a strong start for MMS Team 3 who was one of the early leaders with Michael Devaney at the wheel, later dropped down the order due to black flags for driving infringements. They recovered to finish 7th. Naas Court Hotel had been hit into the path of MMS Team 18 causing considerable damage. Our mechanics managed to get MMS Team 18 back into the race but several laps down, they recovered to finish 18th. MMS Team 14 did a great job and were in contention all race long. Hugh Grennan was sharing the car with Dave Maguire, John Farrelly & Rod McGovern. They were leading at the midway point, their pace was strong, we had a good strategy and with clean pit stops we felt we had a good chance. The car I was driving was repaired so we re-entered the race for a bit of fun 55 laps behind (sure why not!). We gained back 6 laps on the leaders and with 10 minutes to go the CV joint failed which was a battle scar from the earlier crash.
During the closing stages John Farrelly was leading the race with Damien Faulkner chasing him down. A late safety car bunched the field up and John lost his lead to Faulkner and also a backmarker managed to sneak past. The backmarker was actually earlier black flagged and then excluded but in the dark it was difficult to see flags and his team didn’t call him in. An intense finish with the three cars nose to tail but Team Southside held on to take a great win. Incredibly they managed to do the full 6 hours on just 4 Yokohama tyres! Race results can be found here. Mondello and the officials did another great job running the event. Congratulations again to team Southside on a job well done, we hope to be back with some strong teams again next year! Eoin Special thanks to Brian Walsh & Michael Chester for the images.