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2015 Fun Cup race dates:
Round 1. 4th April, Silverstone International.
Round 2. 30th May, Snetterton 300.
Round 3. 20th June, Brands Hatch.
Non Championship, 9/10/11 & 12th July, Spa 25 hour.
Round 4 & 5. 22nd August, Donington Park.
Round 6. 26th September, Anglesey (day into night).
Round 7. 17th October, Oulton Park International.

cool pictures

Nice, much better than the pics I took! I will post a few of mine in here later though.

Heard it was an awesome trip Wish I could do something like that, but since I live in the asshole of the world, sadly it won't be easy

Nice, and 1/2500 for funcups wow

The stupid pitlane hitler had a go at me as soon as I got my camera out.

I can understand though, he doesn't want photographers leaning over pit wall.

Tbh he was a joke all day.

"YOUR CAR HAD TO MUCH WHEEL SPIN COMING OUT OF YOUR BOX, DO IT AGAIN AND I'LL REPORT YOU"

"YOUR CAR LOCKED A BRAKE COMING INTO PIT ROAD/PIT BOX, WE WILL HAVE NONE OF THAT PLEASE"

Anyway my tent ruled because it went up and down, in around 10 seconds flat Unlike Richards fortress which seemed to take forever.

My pics from Snetterton:




























Click on the thumbnails for larger versions.

Snetterton 4 hours August 24th 2008
Qualifying

31 Fun Cup cars arrived at a sunny Snetterton in the heart of Norfolk last weekend, with the drivers of the Cuisine de France / SPAR race car determined to demonstrate their pace.

Qualifying was held in very wet conditions but Richard and Marc Connell were quickly on the pace finally setting 6th fastest time: - Not that this mattered as the starting grid would be drawn at random and our car would start way back in 23rd!

Race: 4 hours

Richard took the first stint and made up a 10 places in the first 6 laps, climbing to 13th and looking good to make up more places.

However from lap 7, he started to slow with an increasingly annoying engine misfire caused by an electrical discharge. Eventually after 18 laps and having dropped to 18th, a frustrated Richard headed into the pits to try and cure the problem.
After losing more than four laps in the pits with an 8 minute & 22 second pit stop the car was push started and finally resumed now back in 29th place.

Over the next five stints, Richard and Marc were able to set a Relentless pace, push hard and claw back up through the field finally finishing in 13th pace and setting the 4th fastest race lap. This was however little consolation as a good result had been within reach.

Thanks to Mike and Nick on the pit wall plus Marvin, Will and the Abbey Motorsport crew, whose No 1 car finished in 5th place winning the team of the race award.
TV Coverage : TBA

The next race for the team is the Pembrey 6 hours on September 6th in Wales. http://www.connell-racing.co.uk/

Prior to that Richard was in Monza for a few days with ING Renault F1 as test team engineer. (Running Piquet & Alonso this time)

Beetle190

That's sad

Indeed, very sad. Jason mentioned this on MSN the other day, was quite a shock to hear of a death in the Fun Cup.

Connell racing Newsletter 7 / 2008 : Pembrey 6 hours September 6th 2008
Motor racing suddenly seemed irrelevant on Saturday at Pembrey, as half way through our race we learned that one of our fellow competitors David Byers had died. Very sad news.

Ian, Richard and Marc Connell offer our condolences to his wife, Ann and to his family.

Qualifying

26 cars qualified for the race at the Pembrey Circuit in South Wales. This was the first time the Fun Cup has been to Pembrey and although the circuit facilities are very poor, the actual circuit was quite fun to drive.

We sent Marc out first to learn the circuit as only Richard and Ian had tested on the Friday. He did well to qualify 11th. That was the time that stood, as when Richard and Ian went out to qualify the track had got wetter and the safety car was out, so Richard only got 2 flying laps!

It all meant for nothing though as for the second race in a row we had a poor grid draw, ending up 24th of the 26 cars.

Race

Richard took the first stint in damp conditions and had a fantastic start form the back of the grid, coming around at the end of lap one in 15th place having made up 9 places! By lap 6th he was up to 10th and up to 8th by lap 26, only 22 second behind a fantastic lead dice that featured 6 cars....should make great TV.

Our first compulsory pit stop at 1 hour went wrong as we tried to replace a damaged front splitter…….it took much longer than we expected and we ended up in the pits for over 3 minutes for a pit stop that should have only taken about one minute. As a result, when Marc did get out he was down to 16th place.

However good progress was then made over the next two hours with some very consistent fast driving so by nearly 3 hours, we were back up to 6th place.

At that stage the race was stopped due to the sudden death of David. After discussion among the drivers the decision to abandon the remainder of the race was taken, which I believe was the correct decision.

Martindale Trucks to Go were therefore declared winers of the shortened race, with Matrix 2nd and Martindale MTF 3rd with Team O`Brien led by ex BTCC star Eugene O`Brien 4th.

The other Abbey prepared car of Tasman motorsport also ran well getting up to 11th by the end of the race, despite Peter getting thumped up the rear by an errant car when the safety car came out.

Once again thanks to Will and the Abbey team.

TV coverage
Snetterton TV coverage RACEWORLD:
Thurs Sep 25th: 6.30pm (Sky Sports 1), 8pm (Sky Sports 2) and midnight (Sky Sports Xtra)
Fri Sep 26th: 4.30am (Sky Sports 3), 9am (Sky Sports 2) and midday (Sky Sports 3)
Sat Sep 27th: 6am (Sky Sports Xtra) Sun Sep 28th: 3am (Sky Sports Xtra)

Pembrey TV coverage RACEWORLD
Thurs Oct 2nd: 7pm (Sky Sports Xtra) and midnight (Sky Sports Xtra)
Fri Oct 3rd: 4am (Sky Sp 1), 8am (Sky Sports 3), midday (Sky Sports 3) 4pm (Sky Sports Xtra)
Sat Oct 4th: 5am (Sky Sports Xtra)

The next race for the team is the Oulton Park 4 hours on 11th October, when Pete Cate joins the team again.
http://www.connell-racing.co.uk/

Except on the pitwall.

funny

great pics lads, very sorry to hear of the death @ pembury tho.

And I missed it But nature called lol.

The driver got out alright though

Connell racing Newsletter 8 / 2008
Oulton Park 4 hours October 11th 2008

Qualifying
35 cars tested for this last race of 2008, with one car failing to start after being completed gutted by a fire inferno in Friday testing as in photo above.
Marc Connell went out first as only Richard Connell & Peter Cate had tested on Friday. He handed over to Richard who set our fastest lap (11th). We put Pete out last to try and get our best lap time, but he had a brief off which damaged the splitter, stopping any chance of improvement
It all meant for nothing though as usual, as the grid is drawn by lottery and we drew 9th place.

Race
Pete would take the first stint and after a great start, he slotted in to 5th place before getting up to 3rd by lap 3, setting the team's fastest lap (he was our only driver to get a dry stint) at 2:04.7.

Then the rain started to fall, but Pete was able briefly lead the race for a few laps, before coming in for the first pit stop, but then delayed by having to replace a broken splitter & handing over to Richard for the second stint. Richard did a great job to maintain the pace in the very tricky conditions, holding fifth place before Marc took the wheel. Unfortunately, for Marc, much of his stint was run behind the safety car, as the rain had resulted in many shunts.

Pete duly returned to the fray, taking advantage of the dangerous but stable conditions to find grip in unusual points on the circuit. However he then suffered another off which damaged a splitter and then got a puncture after a collision with an errant car, before handing over to Richard now back in 9th after further delays in the pit stop to make more repairs.

In his final quick but error free stint Richard managed to get the car up to 6th place before handing over for the final stint to Pete. Pete took over and was immediately up to 5th place as we had jumped a couple of cars by not fueling for the last pit stop…a good result looked on the cards!
Peter took the Cuisine de France/ SPAR car quickly up to fourth place with just fifteen minutes to go, & with the lead cars scrapping, there was a chance of a podium finish. He completes the tale:

"I was pushing hard, no doubt, and as the line dried, the speeds through the corners increased. I found through Island Bend that the car was on the rev limit in fourth and so I decided to take fifth gear next time around, which is normal for dry conditions. This was a mistake and as I took the corner it ran slightly wide onto the wet, spun backwards at speed along the grass, with the rear end just caught the barrier and damaging the rear suspension”.

Although Pete managed to drag the car back to the pits, the damage was too severe to repair so we ended up with a frustrating non-finish, finally classified 25th.

Summary

Peter had set the 4th fastest lap of the race early on. This lap was over 2 second faster than the fastest lap of the eventual winners (Honeywell)

It just goes to prove what we all know about endurance racing………its not about outright pace……..its about a fast, consistent error free drive which avoids problems………….”to finish 1st, first you have to finish”

Thank to Will & Tony at Abbey Motorsport for all their help this year……….and once again thanks to our own crew, Marvin in the garage & Mike Head who ran out pit wall aided on this occasion by Emma James, who has just started the Motorsport Engineering degree Course at Oxford Brookes Uni. (the same course Richard did at Brookes)

Finally, a warm thank you to all our sponsors for 2008 & we hope you will be back with us in 2009 for another action packed season with Connell Racing................. .

SPAR [b]Cuisine de France Coca Cola / Relentless
Pensworth Diary VK Vodka Kick Pyramid Presentations
Volvic (Danone) Branston Beans (Premier Foods) Stalite Signs
Flair Shop fitters Gregory Distribution Bank Machine [/b]
Oulton Park TV coverage

Oulton Park - Sky Sports TV Coverage
Thursday 23rd Oct - 7pm (SS3), 10pm (SSX)
Friday 24th Oct - 1am (SS1), 4.20am (SS1)Midday (SS3) 4pm (SS3)
Saturday 25th Oct - 6am (SSX)

That's just a big shame.. Marshalls can't get that fire out, car is just doomed to burn to ashes.. like the Spyker at Paul Ricard

been (re)reading this with interest!

Me to! Shame to see that car burn like that,nothing you can do about it..

I've become a Fun Cup fan in 2001,and since then i visit the 25h of Spa every year,and in 2006 a big dream came true,when i drove a race at Spa (Francorchampagne meeting),my avatar picture was taken at that race(me on the left getting ready to get in the car)