Our Amateur Team Takes on Its First 24-Hour Race and Triumphs

Nik Berg has been competing in a grassroots endurance race series for the Ford KA. Follow his other EnduroKa exploits here.

Dropping into the left-right corkscrew I look up, momentarily distracted by the glorious orange glow of sunrise over the Irish Sea. I can’t remember when I last slept. My left leg has been spasming in cramp for the last hour. But the fog of exhaustion and the pain of dehydration disappear with the dawn light. AFK Racing has officially made it into day two of Ynys Môn 24 – the EnduroKA 24 Hours of Anglesey.

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It has taken months of planning to get here. We’re an amateur team that grew out of pandemic-era sim racing and only raced for the first time in November 2022. (AFK, as you may have guessed, is a reference to gamer slang: Away From Keyboard.) By day, our crack crew of mechanics are art directors, town planners, and lawyers. We’ve spent weekends preparing the little racing KA, accumulating and cataloguing spare parts, and consumed weeknights poring over strategy and scheduling (with some truly Excel-ent work by Kasia Murphy). We’ve even cooked up meals for our extended team of 20 to take to the track.

Ahead of the 24-hour event in Wales, every pit stop has been planned. We have spreadsheets to help calculate tyre pressures, fuel requirements, and the complex rota that allows drivers and mechanics to get some downtime. Yet before we even turn a wheel, there is a major problem. One of our drivers pulls out and we face the prospect of having to do the entire 24 hours with just three of us sharing driving duties. Adding to the issue is that one of the driver trio, Nick Creed, is recovering from illness, so we need to rework the schedule to give him a decent chance to sleep between stints.

Frantic phone calls are made. Unfortunately, Trac Môn, the most scenic circuit in the UK, is also the most remote. Getting a replacement driver at such short notice proves impossible. Just as we drivers are resigning ourselves to eight long hours behind the wheel each, rescue comes from the other end of the pit lane: Lawrence Davey from Team LDR. We re-work our schedule and tee him up for a couple of two-hour sessions. We head into qualifying with one less thing to worry about.

The Coastal Circuit is 1.55 miles long and pretty technical. The start/finish straight is short, leading into a sweeping left-hander that’s flat in third gear. There’s just a chance to grab fourth before hitting the brakes and tipping into The Banking, which, as the name suggests is a steeply cambered right corner, taken in third. Then it’s back on the power, accelerating through the right-hander at Church and all the way up the back straight, which gets progressively steeper right up to the over-90-degree left at Rocket. It’s the biggest stop on the track, slowing from 85 mph in fourth down to second gear. There’s barely time to breathe before it’s into a tight right and then a short straight to the third-gear right-hander at Peel. Hold third over the rise and through the wild ride at Seamans – a section like a little Laguna Seca Corkscrew – and then it’s into the final Bus Stop corner with its exceptionally vicious exit kerbs.

Trac Mon map — Wikimedia Commons/saethwr

We’ve all agreed that we’ll do our best to avoid running any kerbs throughout the event in order to preserve driveshafts and bearings, even though the strategy does mean we’ll sacrifice lap times. Our best lap of 1:31.593 is only good enough for 11th on the grid of 22, but no 24-hour event is won on the first lap.

Race day dawns and despite having an extremely comfortable Volkswagen Grand California as my quarters, I have barely slept. My mind has been racing all night. Short of bringing a spare car, as five other teams have, we’re as prepared as we can be – yet so much could still go wrong.

We spend the morning on drilling pitstops with our crew, most of whom have never met before. On refueling, we have design engineer Michael Beaumont and development consultant Jason Mound. Manning the jacks and wheel guns are art director Dan Froude, lawyer Chris Charlton, business analyst Simon Day, and electrical infrastructure engineer Tristan Knowles. Tristan is the most experienced, having previously crewed for British Superbike teams and supported us – mainly, his wife Natalie– on a few previous rounds.

After some dummy runs, it’s all coming together nicely. While we probably won’t be the fastest in the pits, we should be in safe hands. That’s exemplified when Tristan spots play in a brand-new rear wheel bearing and swaps it out for one of our spares.

At 4:10 p.m. 22 cars line up behind the safety car to begin the race. Nick is taking the first two-hour stint and makes up four places on lap one. It’s not exactly the steady start he’d talked about, but everyone on track seems to have remembered there’s a very long way to go. Soon, things settle down.

In our last outing at Silverstone, our KA seemed to lack some straight-line speed, and while it’s definitely better now, a few cars still have an edge down the long back straight. As the laps tick by, they begin to retake positions.

I’m not due to drive until 10:10 pm, so I retire to the Grand Cali in a vain attempt to get some rest. At 6:30 I leave my snoozing wife to return to our pit garage and catch up on what I’ve missed. It’s quite a strange way to race. Any time I’m not either driving or in the garage watching the timing screen I feel like I’m somehow betraying the team.

They’re doing fine without me. Nick pitted after his first stint in 11th place, and Nat rejoined with a full tank of fuel in 13th. By the time I’ve eaten some of her delicious chicken curry, she’s in ninth.

Meanwhile, things are getting spicy in some of the higher-placed teams. Both the Pro-Am and 11/10ths cars come into the pits with rear drums ablaze, and Tristan, with his trusty leaf blower, springs to action. EnduroKA is a hotly contested series, but the camaraderie between teams is superb. Especially at this longest round, there’s a sense that everyone will help to ensure every team makes it to the finish.

Nick is out again next, after a pit stop for fuel and new front tyres drops the team back to 11th. The situation quickly gets worse as he reports a nasty noise from the rear. He pits once more, and Tristan finds play in the left rear wheel bearing again. Having seen what has happened to other teams, we decide to change it. In just over five minutes we’re underway once more, now three places further adrift.

When Nick pits again, we’re in seventh place – a brilliant recovery drive. I’m out again in ninth place just as night falls. I take a few laps to adjust to the gloom, relying on our extra spotlights to pick out each apex. I focus on consistency and mechanical sympathy, and manage to regain the places we lost in the pit stop. Each driver has their other half on the radio to offer race information, but during much of my drive I’m circulating on my own. “All by myself…” croons my wife, helpfully.

When Nat takes over with four new tyres and a full tank, we have slipped back to 11th once again. I stay to watch her regain two positions and for our emergency stand-in driver Lawrence to arrive.

Another fruitless attempt to get some shut-eye, and my alarm sounds, this time at three in the morning. I’m due back in the garage for my second shift. Lawrence pits from seventh after a stonking drive. The front tyres are down to the cords.

I get new shoes and, crucially, given how completely frazzled I am, the massive mental uplift of seeing the sun rise. After two hours we’re up to sixth place. The heater control valve packs up, which means we can’t draw any extra heat from the engine.

In steps Nick, pushing the car to fourth. I once again try to sleep. After a couple of unsuccessful hours I give up, head to the garage for some food, and almost pass out in a chair. Back in the van, I finally get some California dream time, waking in time to witness the KA just holding station in fourth ahead of the 555 Sukaru team, with four hours remaining in the race. Nice work, Nat and Lawrence.

Nick steps up to take his fourth shift behind the wheel, a minute behind the 555. He gradually reels it in, and by the time the final pit stop comes around, we are ahead again. Our pit crew once more performs their duties perfectly, and we’re one of only a handful of teams to escape a penalty for an infringement.

Even so, we lose position. Changing front tyres and putting in enough fuel to finish the race means we’re in the pits for over five minutes, and I emerge onto the track almost a lap down on the 555, with two hours to try to take the position. On the radio Tristan gives me a lap-by-lap account of the gap. It’s closing by two, sometimes three seconds a lap.

With our heater busted, we seem a little further down on speed, and I’m forced to draft. In the slipstream of another car I hit 86 mph at the end of the back straight; without the tow, I’m lucky to hit 81. Rather than battling every car, I play the long game, allowing faster cars to pass me on the straights, then hugging their rear bumpers for as long as I can.

The speedier set includes the lead car, fielded by MilnAir and headed by former British Rally Champion Johnny Milner. At this stage in the race, I actually seem to be quicker overall, but it pays to sit behind. Within the hour I’m past the 555 car and trying to put as much time between us to cover any last-minute mishaps.

After 873 laps and 1,353 miles, I cross the line for the last time. Though we’d secretly hoped to be in the top ten, our only goal had been to finish. We finish fourth, far beyond what we ever thought was possible.

Now, I need to sleep for a week.