15 Sep 05
So perhaps you can imagine how I felt when I heard the collective gasp go up in the pits as a line appeared on the timing board informing us that the car had stopped, somewhere out on the circuit. The shock was almost a physical force. I wanted to shout, cry, run and hide all at the same time. This could not happen, not with an hour and a half - a trip to the shops in 24-hour racing terms - left to go. Worse, we could not talk to Ian Flux as, one of the other cars reported, he had got out of the car. But we knew there had been no accident and that, sooner or later, a tow-truck would haul the RX-8 back to the pits. We were never going to win the class, but the closest car behind us was ten laps or nearly 25 minutes behind us. If we could find out what was wrong and fix it, there was still just a chance.
It took three of our ten laps to get the car back, though it seemed like at least another 24 hours. Flux said the car had simply lost all power and he'd got out because not even the radio would work. Total electrical failure? It couldn't be something as simple as the master switch, could it? It could. Within one minute, our RX-8 was back in the race, sounding as good as ever, and with Mike Wilds at the wheel promising 'to drive like my grandmother' to bring it home.
Which he duly did, to suitably wild scenes of jubilation from the entire Mazda squad. On the last lap, all three RX-8s formed up and crossed the line together, delivering in full on our promise to the team; ours led, as was only right, Wild's taking the flag to retain our 2nd in class position and 17th overall in the race. In an RX-8 with a standard engine and gearbox, pitched against Le Mans-specification Porsches, we didn't think that was too bad.
Once we'd all hugged, and collected the trinkets, flowers and bubbles, I said my goodbyes, climbed into my S-Type Jaguar and left my life as a long-distance racing driver behind. I made it home but as the front door shut behind me, I was aware of a new feeling within me. And then I worked out that I had had less than two hours sleep in the preceding 40 and, not only that, for six of those forty hours I had been working, both physically and mentally, just about as hard as I ever had in my life. So when the wave of exhaustion came, I didn't even attempt to fight it. It was like a general anaesthetic, where you're lucid from one moment to the next but are unable to account for the fact that, somehow, 12 hours appeared to have slipped between the two.
So now that I know what tired is, I'll tell you, too: if you've just done a 24-hour race, it's the best feeling in the world.
