12 Sep 06
It is 4.35pm on Sunday. There is just 25 minutes of the Britcar Silverstone 24-hour race remaining. For 23 hours and 35 minutes, five drivers and a crew of dozens in the pits have worked ceaselessly to get our racing Mazda RX-8 to the chequered flag. For a day and a sleepless night, they have coped with everything this race could throw at them.
Now the car has been fuelled for the last time, taken on its last set of tyres and there is no more that can be done. We can't catch the car ahead, the one behind can't catch us: all that's needed is for fellow hack Jason Barlow to gently reel off the remaining laps and bring it home.
But then the radio crackles into life as Barlow utters the words we've all been praying we would never hear: 'The car's stopped on the straight. Something's broken. It won't start.'
I can feel my stomach drop and my eyes brim - we had got through 1,415 minutes of a 1,440-minute race, dreaming of that moment when car 98 would come over the line, and now it's not going to happen. It seems that it's all over. But it's not. What happens next may beggar belief, but it's true.
For those of you who have never witnessed a 24-hour race at Le Mans or anywhere else, let me tell you it is an emotionally and physically draining experience - and that's if you're only watching.
Last year Mazda asked me to take my place in the driving line-up of one of the three RX-8s it was entering at Silverstone and by the end I had learnt that it was a cruel and dangerous way to pass the time. So when I was asked back this year, I thought I knew what I was letting myself in for.
In fact I didn't have a clue; the one thing I'd forgotten about 24- hour racing is that it is also completely unpredictable.
