l'endurance, July 2014: Preview

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July 2014

Uphill, downforce. Romain Dumas on the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb

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DUMAS OF PIKES PEAK

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Romain Dumas attacks the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. The Frenchman took his first victory at the world famous event on his third attempt, and we talk to him about it on page 10.

Photo: Trevor Andrusko/Track 9

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July 2014: ROMAIN EMPEROR editor in chief: jake yorath deputy editor: dan bathie Words: Dan bathie jake yorath Photography: Trevor Andrusko Dan bathie Tom Loomes Jamey Price jake yorath

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les sights de la sarthe

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COVER STORY ROMAIN DUMAS TAKES ON THE PEAK

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con t e n t s

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in focus

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BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE 2014 N24 July 2014 - 5

THE BEST OF TIMES THE WURST OF TIMES BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE N24

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Words and pictures: Jake Yorath

M

y makeshift office is on the top floor of the hospitality unit, a space shared with two massage tables, the two osteopaths and various drivers in their pants at various stages of the weekend. Ah, the glamour of motorsport.

When the news comes through, it’s just me, osteo Dennis, Max Martin and Fred, Max’s right hand man.

It’s the middle of the night, and communications manager Ian has just left. He’s here to handle videos and has gone off to get some sleep, because he’s used to Moto2 bike racing, where the races are 24 laps rather than 24 hours. Actually, I’d asked him not to, because he’s got previous. Last year at Spa, he left with the message ‘If anything serious happens, text me, I’ll come back’. He hadn’t even made it from the pitbox to his car before the #3 car stopped on track and the race was over.

“Right, I’m off for some kip, give me a shout if anything happens,” he says.

“Are you sure?” I say, pointing out what had happened the year before. He leaves anyway.

Barely has he left the unit before Fred’s radio crackles into life. At first it’s hard to make out the message, but soon it becomes pretty clear. It’s Marco Wittmann, and on the radio we hear ‘contact’, ‘accident’, ‘stopped’. He’s OK. The car is not – he’s been hit from behind by another competitor, and the #25 car is out of the race.

It’s not been a great night, because we’d not long come back from the garage after a problem for the #26 car. Its throttle was playing up, and the car lost four laps with two trips to the garage. The two crews, alongside engineers from BMW Motorsport, had worked their nuts off to get it back into the race – the speed with which professional mechanics can source and repair a problem never ceases to amaze me. It might be painful to watch, but it’s also extremely impressive. The worst thing is that once a problem has struck in a race this tight, their efforts are only going to be to serve as damage limitation.

Realistically, the race is lost.

It doesn’t get much better. Trying to pass a couple of Merc GT3s, Bas Leinders gets caught behind slow traffic and crashes trying to avoid them. Day done for both cars, and they’d both crashed on their 61st lap. I hate the number 61.

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in focus

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the best photos from around the sportscar world this month

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ADAC-Zurich 24h Rennen, N端rburgring Tom Loomes used the Canon 5D Mk2 and the 70-200mm f/2.8L. Shutter 1/40, Aperture f6.3.

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PEAK PERFORMANCE STARRING ROMAIN DUMAS

Words: Jake Yorath

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You might be surprised to find that Romain Dumas was only joking when he first mentioned the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb to his team. He’d been doing some rallying – successfully, in fact – when he made an offhand remark about it.

“Three years ago, I was doing some rally – I do some rallying in a Porsche with my own team in France – and we won the French championship,” he explains.

“I said to my guys, ‘Hey, why don’t we go to Pikes Peak?’ and they said ‘OK, we go to Pikes Peak’. I told them I was joking, but that was that – we were going to Pikes Peak.”

It’s a joke that’s turned out to be quite profitable for the Frenchman. He’s won Le Mans – on loan from Porsche, for whom he is a factory pilot, at Audi – the 24 Hours of Spa, the 24 Hours of Nürburgring and the American Le Mans Series, but he’s always looking for new challenges. It’s been a busy year, with developing and racing the Porsche 919 as part of the factory team, as well as running his own team for this Pikes Peak effort.

“So we first went in 2012 with a GT3R, that we modified ourselves,” he says. “It had more downforce,

Track9/Trevor Andrusko

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Track9/Trevor Andrusko

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i24 In our last issue, we said you should leave your SLR at home for Le Mans and take just a smartphone. We like to follow our own advice, so Dan did just that.

Words and photos: Dan Bathie

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/ Departing Dover For me, Le Mans starts as soon as you set off.

Queuing for the ferry, the excitement builds as you spot fellow Le Mans goers, cars stickered up in various ways. On the Thursday I crossed the channel it was a beautiful morning, the colour of the sky matching the Dover coastline we were leaving behind.

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/ Navigating Normandy Once off the autoroute, the task of avoiding the worlds most confusing place (Rouen) is in order. We get lost, of course, but happen to stumble upon some beautiful French countryside. My iPhone 5s copes beautifully with depth of field to pick out the details.

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