TBK-Light.com

The 251 is running fifth at the moment, 2 laps down from the lead. Great job so far

Received a text msg from Eddington



if I get any more Text i will post them here

latest update from Eddington

Something must've happened right after that post because they have fallen back to P52 and are still in the pitlane

They had an electrical failure caused by the main earth wire that shortened against the oil return pipe, it took over an hour to fix. Such a shame for them

251 Cusine De France/Spar





248 CCS Car




190 MyHandle.com


(Thanks to Patrick for the great Photos - http://pamali5.pa.funpic.de/gallery/thu ... ?album=106)

crap, that sucks

Forza la Norvege

Spar 25 hours hurrrrr...

They're missing a trick by not being the title sponsor of the race....
Remind me to mention it next time I'm in my local store

Thanks for all your support guys.....its great to see you tracking our progress through the Spa 25 hour race.

Good news for the rest of the season: our ace Frencman Franck Pelle who drove with us Spa has agreed to join us for the remaining three UK races. Marc Connell and I will drive with him at Anglesey and Donington, while Richard Connell returns from his 3 month South American adventure for the last race at Oulton Park. (Richard is currently considering offers to get back into F1 on 2010, having been Test Engineer at Renault F1 and Takumas Satos race engineer at Super Aguri.)

Thansk EM for your enthusiam on all this!
Ian Connell / Connell Racing / Team Cuisine de France SPAR

Team Cuisine de France SPAR had a fantastic race at the Spa 25 hours last weekend ……. but only up to 20 hours!

In 6th overall at 19 hours and leading the UK class by nearly 3 laps, the team then endured heartbreak when the wiring loom overheated, causing electrical failure and dropping the team way down. The team recovered to 59th place by the race finish.

The race drivers, led by Ian Connell, included son Marc, Frenchman Franck Pelle and Norwegian Lars Berg. The car was run by Solutions racing, with support from Connell racing friends.
Ian Commented: - “It’s been a bitter pill to swallow, having featured so strongly and led the UK class for several hours. At one stage we were as high as 3rd overall. We will be back next year”.
A full report, hour by hour is attached on the next page below:-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TV Coverage and You Tube clips of the race

4 short video clips of the Team are now posted on YOU TUBE under user Connell racing. The links are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOZDOV_vYoI (This is the our race summary / 4 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fClJsPBH138 (This is for our sponsors / 2 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5My0pMwecQw (This is team members / 5 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhNsQMj5r6k (This is the grid walk / 2 minutes)

Please get as many people as possible to view these by:-

1) E-mailing these links around to friends and colleagues
2) Click on 5 star rating (which puts it more popular on You Tube find list)
3) Add a nice or funny comment…not too rude!

TV Coverage of the highlights will be on Skysports and Motors TV in due course.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to:
Steve, Pete, Stuart and Mike and all the Solutions race team members who worked through night and day. Also to Mike, Nick and Emma who ran out pit wall so well, again without any breaks of note and finally to Marvin for controlling our pit stops, w3hich as ever were fast and fluid.
Congratulations to car 221 Track Torque who finish 5th and win the UK class and to our Solutions Racing Team mates CCS Media who finished 56th and Myhandle.com who finished 89th in their first ever Spa 25 hours. Well done guys!

Team Cuisine de France SPAR - 25 heures du Spa race report - hour by hour.
Spa 25 hours Overall Position UK position Test Comments
Practice 14th 6th Lars and Franck get used to the car (First time in it)
Qualifying 12th 5th Sent Franck out early on new tyres, low fuel to bank a lap, then concentrated on tyre scrubbing and bedding in race brake pads
Warm up 4th 2nd Good set up for the race

Hour (end) Overall Position UK position Race Comments
1 8th 2nd
2 15th 4th Franck pits for fuel under safety car and loses 4 minutes in queue!
3 7th 2nd
4 10th 3rd
5 6th 2nd
6 7th 2nd
7 3rd 1st
8 9th 2nd
9 8th 2nd
10 7th 2nd
11 5th 1st
12 5th 1st
13 6th 2nd Ian spins at Rivage in wet. Loses a lap getting out of gravel.
14 4th 1st
15 6th 1st Windscreen wipers fail for start of Marc’s stint in heavy rain!
16 5th 1st Marc spins at Blanchimont. L/H splitter and lamp damaged. Minimal time lost.
17 5th 1st Wet tyres on. Lars runs onto grass. LH splitter torn off. Minimal time lost.
18 7th 1st
19 6th 1st
20 23rd 6th Franck stops on circuit. Towed in for repairs to burnt wiring loom
21 35th 9th Wiring loom replaced. Marc goes out.
22 69th 15th Marc towed back after 1 lap, turning the engine off due to oil leak. Oil hose replaced. (damaged by wiring loom fire)
23 64th 14th
24 61st 14th Rear wing loose, removed
25 / End 59th 14th Lars finishes the race

Nothing much to add really... this is the car that came back into its pits.. youtube link below





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlayYzfqndI

and this is what went back out 2 hours later.

_________________
I think you should do what you want.

It's your forum and I paid the bills this year..

and if people don't like it they shouldComplain here

Just a couple from me.. Im sure Ian will be along soon to post some of his thoughts and the report..

It was bloody windy so we had to set up with the awning facing into the paddock and away from the pit lane... bloody awkward..



Drivers on the Grid






A pit stop to change a tyre near the end.

A winning Team

_________________
I think you should do what you want.

It's your forum and I paid the bills this year..

and if people don't like it they shouldComplain here

Congrats

Well done

Good job , I'd love to be invovled in somthing like this someday.

Ok Time to take the piss out of the Fat Pensioner....

and i dont Mean Ian Connell!

[youtube]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/D7iXqNrpsnU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/D7iXqNrpsnU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/youtube]

[youtube]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jauv46kDRow&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jauv46kDRow&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/youtube]

[youtube]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uXoPjpgOL20&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uXoPjpgOL20&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/youtube]

_________________
I think you should do what you want.

It's your forum and I paid the bills this year..

and if people don't like it they shouldComplain here

that trophy is rather unique lol

This One????



(Birthday Cake was for Ian...)

_________________
I think you should do what you want.

It's your forum and I paid the bills this year..

and if people don't like it they shouldComplain here

Team “Cuisine de France / SPAR” raced to their second victory of the year at Anglesey race track on Saturday in the fourth round of the 2009 Fun Cup UK, in their TDI diesel car run by Solutions Racing.

Driven by Ian Connell, Marc Connell and Frenchman Franck Pelle, the team crossed the line after six hours with a one minute advantage over Team Ram and Track Torque 3.
Qualifying
After Franck and Ian had struggled to find a good set up in testing on Friday, , the Solutions Racing Team guys worked long into the evening checking all the set up data and re-setting the car back to a known position.

Ian did just three laps to qualify first, immediately finding the car faster and handling better. He handed over the car with warm tyres and brakes to Franck to set our qualifying time! Franck this on his second lap, setting 2nd fastest time of the hour long session, behind the Happy Racing car.

Job well done, he then handed over to Marc who needed more track time, as he had missed Friday testing and has never driven at Anglesey before, but now had 40 minutes or so to find his way around. 15 minutes from the end of the hour, Marc parked the car early, as he was happy that all was well. We drew 10th place on the 25 car grid…….

Race: 6 hours

Franck took the start and by the end of lap one was already up to 3rd place, before moving into the lead on lap 4. By the end of his stint he had put in a great drive to extend his lead to 16 seconds, then handing over to Marc.

Marc settled down quickly putting in very good times to increase the lead to over 30 seconds, before handing over to Ian.

Ian suffered in his stint with changeable weather condition making the circuit slippery and a safety car period that closed everyone back up again. Deciding to be very cautious in these conditions, rather than make an error, Ian dropped to 3rd, 6 seconds behind the new leaders Team Ram, but very confident that Franck and Marc had the pace to lead again when conditions improved.

By the end of hour four Franck had got the car back up to second behind Happy Racing, handing over to Marc who took an immediate lead with a quicker pit stop. Just after this Happy Racing crashed with brake failure.

By the final hour Franck was back in the car and leading now by over a full lap. However we were worried about rear tyre wear, so just 15 minutes from the end we pitted to make a precautionary rear tyre change which the Solution guys did fantastically quickly!

The race now ran the last few minutes with us about one minute ahead of Team RAM, to give us a great win on Ian’s birthday!

Race stats: Cuisine de France / SPAR

Start position 10th
Hour 1 1st
Hour 2 1st
Hour 3 3rd
Hour 4 2nd
Hour 5 1st
Hour 6 1st

Race best lap times;
Ian: 1m 23.6
Marc: 1m 22.4
Franck 1m 22.2

TV Coverage Sky Sports and Motors TV
The race will be televised on Sky Sports and Motors TV in a few weeks. I will advise you of the transmission dates when I have them.

Specialist Motorsport press coverage
There is an excellent report on the race which includes a picture of us leading the pack in this weeks Motorsport News published today. See page 9.

Connell racing videos on YOU TUBE
Connell racing now has a YOU TUBE account. Videos have been posted from Anglesey with the main one being a 3 minute review of our race on the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/connellraci ... auv46kDRow

Team
Thanks to our engineer Stuart, plus Mike, Pete, Steve and all the Solutions Racing Team who did a fantastic job running and preparing the car on race day. Thanks also to Connell Racing crew members, Marvin who did our refueling and Mike who ran the race strategy from the pit wall.

Our Solutions racing Team mates had fast but troubled runs, with CCS Media coming home in 14th place and 6th in the petrol class, while My Handle.Com new to racing this year ran well after an early bump to finish 18th and 8th in the petrol class.

2009 Fun Cup
Fun Cup is the first motor racing series in the UK and Europe to be promoting the use of the environmentally friendly TDI engines. They are a 1900cc TDI, 160 bhp, VW diesel engine, produce approximately 30 % less pollution, 40 % less noise, and emit no visible smoke from the exhausts.

2009 Fun Cup Long Distance race dates to follow
12th September 2009 cancelled Donington Park (Derby) cancelled
17th October 2009 Oulton Park (Cheshire) 4 Hours
14th November 2009 provisionally Snetterton (Norfolk) 6 Hours

http://www.connell-racing.co.uk/