This was the second time I attended the DiSCA 24 hours of Paul Ricard, hosted by DSCA in Mechelen, Belgium.
Last year we raced in the LM GT3 class, using a car with mostly production parts, aside from a prototype 201 Slotcars motor pod. We finished a solid 6th overall and secon in class, losing out by 17 laps to one of the the home teams.
This year we made the jump up to the premier Hypercar class, and would be using a 201 Slotcars chassis and pod, under a modified Scaleauto Cadillac bodyshell. The team for this year would consist of myself, Wayne Lander, Giovanni Rusello and the recent addition of star driver Oskar Ellerstrand. Should we get the car right, we would have a decnet chance of fighting for an overall podium.
Our testing time was cut short. The Body was built Gio in New Zealand, while the chassis we were intending to race were assembled by Wayne in Wales, less than a week before the event. Come Friday race weekend, the car was assembled for the first time, and we discovered some issues with the body fit. It took up much of our practice sessions to get everything fitting right, and we had little time for any tuning other than dialing in ground clearance and front axle height.
We went in to qualifying with most of us having very little track time, but fortunately the car was working very well. Oskar, who had never seen the track before, got up to speed very quickly and after Q3 on Saturday, had set a best laptime 1/100th off pole position, set by home team DSCA.
Oskar would also take the start of the race, and it only took him a few minutes until we were in the lead of the race. Shortly after the first driver change, the car stopped on track, due to a dry solder joint. This put us back to 6th place, and from here on the race would become a chase to catch up to the cars in front. We suffered a few more minor setbacks during the evening that hampered our progress, but as the darkness fell the car came to life, and we were able to claw ourselves back to P2 come the morning. For a long time we were catching DCSA in P1, but by noon Sunday our pace had dropped compared to the night, and time was running out. With a comfortable gap behind, we decided to take it easy and bring the car home in one piece for a solid P2 finish.
Aside form a few reliability issues, I can´t imagine a much better outcome from this event. The car worked as intended and was often times the best package on track. There are already a lot of ideas floating for what to do for next year, as we hope to bring an even stronger fight to the reigning two-time champions.
/Jona Nolåkers – 201 Slotcars
