Dear 24 Hours of Spa,
How are you doing? I’m fine and I hope you are too. I know we haven’t spoken in a while. It must have been about a year. I guess the silence has been mostly my fault. I wasn’t very nice to you in 2015, when it rained heavily during all the days of your event. I can particularly remember the Saturday. By the time I got back to the hotel, my socks were soaked, there was a centimetre of water in my backpack, and even my skin was wet. I know I used some very choice words then, especially as I was wringing out my backpack, but I hope you know I didn’t mean them. I was just very tired. That was all. I swear!
Right now it’s my biggest wish that things between us can go back to how they were before. Not just because I genuinely want to rekindle our friendship, but also because I need your help. (And when I say ‘I’, I technically mean ‘me and all endurance fans everywhere’). You see, it’s been a tough season for 24-hour racing.
At the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring, the weather was deplorable. Hail balls cannoned from the skies; and at one point there was even snow! But the real hitch of the event was the finish. Some fifteen minutes before the end of the race various strange things happened within the Mercedes camp, which lead to the two frontrunners switching places on the last lap and the eventual number two-finishers accusing the winners of ignoring team orders and claiming they’d been robbed off the victory. One of the drivers of the number two-car even refused to go on the podium and only one of them showed up for the press conference. The mud-throwing went on for days afterwards, tainting the entire race.
At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the finish wasn’t a much more cheerful affair. Toyota had looked set to claim their first victory – at last, after all those decades of trying! – but a lousy three minutes before the clock hit zero their car broke down. The looks of the Toyota crew as they were watching it happen on tv were heart-breaking, especially if you know that this wasn’t the first time this happened to them. (In 1994 a transmission problem ended their victory dreams 90 minutes before the finish.) I’m one of those nerds who frequently cries at the end of a 24-hour race, but I swear this is the one and only time I cried for sheer sadness.
And all that, my dearest 24 Hours of Spa, is what brings me to you. You’re the only remaining European around-the-clock endurance race left in 2016. After the anger of the Nürburgring and the heartache of Le Mans, my fellow race fans and I could honestly do with a dose of proper racing topped off with some no-nonsense, unmitigated happiness at the finish line. I know the proper racing-bit probably won’t be too difficult for you. However, I am hereby officially begging you: please try – really try – to give us a nice finish, without fights, without heart-rending drama, and with a winning car that has deserved the victory without a single doubt. I don’t want to put pressure on you, but me and the other endurance fans around the world are putting all our hopes on you. Please, please make it work. Please?
Kind regards,
Girl Talks Racing