I don't know if anyone from the team is on HT, but congratulations to the Speed Star Racing team and their class victory at Spa.

The most interesting challenge to the leaders came, unexpectedly, from a team of four American touring car veterans entered in Mark Hein’s Speed Star Racing Honda Civic, a 2-liter production car the Floridian racer usually runs in the SCCA World Challenge series. Hein, co-driving with Pete Halsmer, John Green and John Schmitt, ran so consistently during the long hours of the race that the quartet had pushed the tiny Honda into First in Class C2 and Third overall by the 12th hour, this in spite of an average lap speed some 15 seconds per lap slower than the A1 silhouettes! The Honda’s reliability and fuel economy were the keys to the team’s success as the car ran flawlessly for the duration of the event finally putting a 27 lap lead over the next car in its class another Honda entered by a Belgian team.

The American entered, Speed Star Racing, Honda lost its chance for the overall podium in the early morning hours of the race when John Schmitt spun the car on the second lap of his final stint because of cold tires. The Honda spun into one of Spas infamous gravel traps and was mired in the stones for several laps until it could be dragged out by a tractor. A lengthy pit stop to clear the car of debris followed dropping the car from its solid third overall to sixth, a position it held until the checker.


http://speedtv.com/articles/auto/roadracing/8284/

 

John Scmitt of HART was one of the drivers and went straight from his 5th place at the Runoffs to go to Belgium for this race. I talked to him a few weeks before and he was really worried that his poor wife was going to kill him for being away so much as he is a member of the front running HARTS RSX team in Grand Am, qualified for and ran the Runoffs in his E bnuilding a new E Prod Del Slo. The Grand AM Quebec, Runoffs and Belgium drives put him away from home for nearly three weeks.

One should not take lightly the chance to run a good car as a guest driver in the 24 hours of Spa and it looks like the effort was rewarded with a victory.

Thanks for the info.

 

That event is near the very top of my wish list: If I could run any race in the world it would be the enduro at the Nurburgring...

Kirk

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Knestis &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">That event is near the very top of my wish list: If I could run any race in the world it would be the enduro at the Nurburgring...

Kirk</TD></TR></TABLE>

I watched the Nurburgring 24 coverage on SPEED with envy. I wonder if SPEED will broadcast Spa?

 

I participated in that race , I was racing in a 96 Prelude , the car was from a frien of my . We were racing in 9th possition after 5 hours in the 2 liter class. We then had problems with the alternator , then the gearbox and 3 hours befor the race , the engine blew up.
The red SSR Civic type R was going strong . And kept on going strong. The car was build Buy a belgian tuner " ELR" . They are the N° 1 Honda tuner in Belgium.

Its fun to race at SPA , at night you got to concentrate 200% , because the race track is quit big and no lights , only ate the F-1 pit boxes and downstairs ate the Enduro pit boxes , but for the rest NADA no lights.

Don't know if next year I'll find the budget to participate. I didn't want to race my ITR at that event because after 24 hours , I think the car neers a serious overhaul .

Douglas