June 13th-16th | Series | Organiser | Car | Placing / Fastest lap |
Le Mans | Le Mans Funcup | Funcup Beetle | Finished: 42th Fastest Lap: 5:08.395 |
FunCup 2024: Le Mans France
Running one day before the main event (Le Mans 24Hr), on Friday 14 June, the FunCup four-hour, multi-driver, endurance race for Volkswagen Beetle look-alikes, attracted some one hundred and fifteen cars, making it the largest grid in the circuit’s one-hundred-year history. Naturally, Barton Racing wanted a piece of the action, so Carl Barton hired a car for Harry and Nigel (Greensall), finished in a fetching orange/blue colour combo, and the team arrived with time to complete both practice sessions and a qualifying, which, through no fault of their own, placed the intrepid an unheard of 91st position on the grid.
When the flag fell Harry, wasted no time, floored the throttle, and charged up the field, handing over to Nigel after forty minutes. Position? Up thirty places. Not bad. Nigel continued to overhaul the opposition, at one time hitting twenty-ninth place. Even better. Pit stops came and went. After four hours of argy-bargy, in the end Barton Racing finished 32nd overall. Well not quite. After penalties were applied (don’t ask!) that was adjusted downwards. Even so a final 42nd was still some achievement in the face of such determined opposition.
Aptly named, and with plenty of laughs along the way, we can’t wait for a FunCup return match.