James Roberts
ENDURANCE RACING
“ We always make sure we know where everyone is through the night, just in case they are needed. We put some folddown camp beds in the trailer so people can go have a snooze, or they just try to nod off in a chair listening to the commentary or some music with a hat over their eyes. Once the morning comes, though, I am awake, and that is it.”
The relentless race often involves close competition, with individual battles taking place throughout the grid. As a result, incidents can happen, and the secret is keeping a cool head if they do.“ You just have to react to them as best you can,” says Drinkwater.“ You can put a plan together, but that could go completely out the window in the first lap.”
“ In long races, a lot of it is about luck, driving steady and having no penalties. We have often not had the luck and had issues, being caught in an incident, once, having a rear beam break when we were about to take the lead. Things can change quickly and you need to just try to not get overly stressed about it.”
When you get to the end, though, it is pure elation. Most cars make it to the finish, even if they have to spend hours in the pits fixing something after an incident to get back on track. Some will end up more than 100 laps down – but whatever happens through the race, the camaraderie involved means there is almost always a good conclusion.
“ One of our guys, JP, is ex-2CV and their philosophy is that everyone makes it across the line, even if they have to be pushed,” says Drinkwater.“ That happened in our first race, when one of our friends ran out of fuel, and we helped push them back to the pits so they could fuel to the finish.”
International Origins
C1 racing originated from Classic 2CV racing, and 2CVs have been running in 24-Hour races since 1990. That, in turn, takes its heritage from French grass-track 2CV racing, which has been going ever since the vehicle was released and remains popular across Europe as well as in the French communities of South America.
There are still people entered into in this year’ s 24-Hour 2CV race who competed in that first event and Bull recalls:“ It started off in Mondello Park in Ireland and times were great over there. It was all very laid back. In fact, I recall one story about an early event where they put the safety car out so the Guinness truck could cross the track!”
Despite their age, 2CVs remain popular to this day, but in 2017, two racing members, Philip Myatt and Carol Wills, came up with the idea of creating a modern version. Myatt spotted a Citroen C1 in the street and it all grew from there. The pair formulated plans for a championship, created a website, and started building a couple of cars.
Two years later, an incredibly large grid of 99 near-identical C1 cars lined up for the first Silverstone 24-Hours event, which is now hosted by the BRSCC.“ Philip and Cathy did the 24-Hour race at Spa in 2016 as a guest class in the C1s, so I built a car with some friends and we took part in both, racing as Team InSeine,” says Welsh.
“ The first C1 24-Hour race in the UK was at Rockingham in 2018, then in 2019, when Spa was too full to take the C1s, they added Silverstone alongside a second race at Rockingham and the grids just got bigger. I did both races, winning the first and leading the second for 23 and a half hours!
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Revolution- June 2025
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