Great cars, great circuit, great fun: Back to basics at Spa Six Hours

A tap on the shoulder, nothing more. I opened an eye, which even through its blear could see a large white Ford Falcon parked outside the pit garage. Panic. Where did the time go? I like a snooze before a stint but how did I oversleep this much? Why didn’t someone kick me from my stupor when they gave Louis the ‘In’ board? Or if they were feeling kind, a lap earlier? Above all, why is there still daylight? Realisation. The Falcon is not meant to be there. Louis has brought it in early. Something’s wrong. And now, an all too familiar feeling. It is over before it even started.

The Frankel family track record at the Spa Six Hours is perhaps a little patchy. It started well. In 2004 three brothers in a little Alfa Giulia Super skidding around with only a crunchy synchromesh between fourth and fifth on the debit side come the final flag. Then, after five years of racing other stuff elsewhere, just two of the brothers returned in an Alfa GTAm, a 1969 car in a race for pre-66 machines, rendered eligible by the once rather wonderful but now sadly defunct Eau Rouge Trophy category for ineligible cars. A ridiculously rare 2-litre 16-valve Autodelta engine giving 240bhp, we thought we’d be lucky to last an hour. It ran fault-free to the finish.

But then, in 2011, the Falcon. The thinking was good: a huge lump like this is a very reassuring thing to be aboard when it’s dark and wet at Spa and cars are pinballing off the barriers, even if the big Ford is, in reality, far lighter than it looks. It had a lot of power because the engine is the same as used by a GT40, save for a four-barrel Holley on top, and a wet sump at the bottom. A lovely long wheelbase makes it nice and stable and when it comes to reliability, who would not bet on all-American iron against the highly strung Italian exotica we’d used until now?

Not us, any more. We (my brother Richard who owns the car, me and my nephew Louis, and one Chris Harris who joins whenever he’s not racing something faster or filming for BBC Top Gear), all love the car. More than anything I’ve raced, it has acquired a personality of its own. It is known with unlimited affection as ‘the old bus’ and has even been known to be referred to in the female gender, something none of us would imagine doing about any other inanimate object.

And it’s not her fault she’s not very good at six-hour races, nor that of Vernon who looks after it and assiduously prepares it for weeks before the race. And yet this year was my tenth in the car – because Covid kiboshed a couple – and while the years all tend to fuse into one amorphous blob, I do recall a wheel falling off during my first stint in it, and being shown a handful of iron filings which had once been a duff batch of rockers explaining its retirement from another. I recall the flywheel and clutch becoming so keen on one another they decided to fuse into a single item, putting us out of yet one more, and the outing in which Chris brought the car in, wound down the window and said rather redundantly, “I think the old girl’s on fire,” as extinguisher after extinguisher was discharged into her rear brakes. Last time out, in 2019, it was immobilised by nothing more than a wire coming loose in or around the alternator, stranding Louis out on the circuit with just 20 minutes of the 360-minute race remaining. It is simple bad luck and in historic racing, especially long distance historic racing, it happens.

It was bad luck too the other time it retired, which is when I crashed it. If you’re interested I was being lapped by a Cobra on the approach to La Source, so considerately kept right to allow him room. We were very close to the hairpin so a better driver in a six-hour race might have elected to leave the move to the run down to Eau Rouge, or just go around the outside of the hairpin. Or overtaken but remembered there was a large American saloon arriving at said hairpin at the same time which had not yet mastered the art of teleportation to another place. But in the event he simply overtook, then turned sharp right across my bows into the apex with rather inevitable consequences. When I went to see him for that little post-race chat we love so much, all he could venture was the undeniable truth that I hit him, so that somehow made it my fault. Still, his car was badly damaged, ours hardly at all and rendered hors de combat only by a pipe being knocked off the oil cooler, so at least that was something.

“Each year the Falcon turns up with more of what it doesn’t need – power”

This year, as ever, we sent a team of trucks out in advance, its immaculately liveried staff rotating the tyres of each on arrival to ensure their logos were all top dead centre. They then unloaded and built our hospitality suite before preparing with infinite care bespoke meals for each driver based on our individual physiologies, metabolisms and required carbohydrate-to-protein ratios. Then the masseurs arrived to set up, complete with the sports psychologists, followed by the PR team and finally, there to greet us like the returning heroes we are, a bank of personal assistants.

Either that or the car was towed to the circuit by an elderly van, while I drove out under my own steam, stopping only to buy as much cheese, ham, Coke and Haribo as I deemed necessary to maintain a crack race team over a long weekend. We found our garage among the cheap seats (otherwise known as the old pits on the run down to Eau Rouge, a far cry from the shiny F1 suites used by the big money in the race up the other side of La Source) and set up shop.

First items to be found were, obviously enough, the kettle, chipped tin mugs, builders’ tea and milk. An army might march on its stomach, but Team Frankel races primarily lubricated by PG Tips. Vernon is the only person who knows where anything is. His role is that of Alf Francis and Alfred Neubauer combined. We dance to his tune and it is as simple as that.

First comes practice on Thursday. There are sessions all day but each 45 minutes costs €200 – £175 – so we’re only doing one. Until that is we mess up the driver changes so much I arrive at the pit exit just as they close the track. I’ve not driven it or here for three years and no one thinks the next opportunity – night qualifying – is a sensible medium through which to make the re-introduction. Another €200 reveals a car that looks the same but feels completely different.

It is part of Frankel convention that each year the Falcon should turn up with even more of what it doesn’t need – power – and even less of what it does – handling. “We’ve found another 20hp!” is a fairly familiar refrain in pit 41. But this year we’ve been treated to new springs, dampers, bushes, the lot. And oh my goodness. To make the apex of Blanchimont you no longer have to turn in shortly after exiting Stavelot. No longer does it audibly groan as it heels right in the middle of Eau Rouge. And if you find yourself running a little wide and lift off the throttle, the chassis actually responds. A bit. At least I thought so.

Strangely it’s no quicker, but then everything seems slower this year, probably because the Spa authorities have sprinkled the exits of several key corners with many tonnes of gravel, quite correctly making them no-go areas once more.

That evening we retire to the same restaurant in which we’ve dined since we first started coming to Spa all those years ago. “For goodness sake don’t mention its name,” implores my brother upon learning I was to write about our adventures. I’m not sure what he thinks might happen – that hordes might cross the Channel to watch us shovelling local flora, fauna and fungi into our mouths next year – but as our patron, his wishes are to be respected.

Somewhat to our surprise, Chris turns up. We’re surprised because I’ve already told him of the new rule that forbids a fourth driver and as only an adopted Frankel, he’s out of a drive. He’s come out just to see us, break some bread, sink some beers and offer some support. Next time you see him larking about on Top Gear and think all TV presenters must be self-obsessed narcissists, remember that.

Next day we go to the drivers’ briefing and. like every year we all pray that when the clerk of the course asks if there are any questions, no-one raises a hand. Because that empowers everyone else, and 15 minutes of your life fast becomes nearer an hour because there are over 300 people in the room. But it’s always good to see who’s turned up. There’s the cream of the historic racing scene of course, but also the likes of Alex Brundle, Harrison Newey, Nic Minassian, Vanina Ickx and Jim Farley. Jim who? Just the boss of Ford worldwide, driving his GT40 with former Bentley Le Mans podium sitter Eric van de Poele. It’s a serious race with a serious grid. Sometimes I think we should take it more seriously. But where’d be the fun in that?

Qualifying comes and goes with each driver doing the minimum number of laps required, and none of us trying to post a decent time. Any car is only as reliable as its least reliable component and with six hours of racing, whether you qualify in or outside the top 50 is really neither here nor there. I go last when it is properly dark and am amused to still see the usual Spa traditions – idiots ending their weekends before they’ve even begun and GT40s hunting in snarling packs.

Race day is always quiet. The car is prepped so we can go and watch some motor-racing before the 4pm start. We have everything from pre-war cars to 1970s F1 cars and modern Le Mans prototypes on the bill here, and even if all you do is stand on the old pitwall and watch them blasting into, up and out of Eau Rouge, you’ll never get bored.

Nearer the time we all suit up for the obligatory team photograph before my brother Richard takes the start. There’s less carnage than usual in the opening laps but the Falcon is smoking a little. This is the fourth Six Hours this engine has done and we worry it’s had enough so call Richard in for a look. But there’s no sign of anything untoward under the bonnet so he’s sent on his way again.

A little less than two uneventful hours later he hands over to Louis and all appears well. The smoke is still there, but decreasing. It rains, Louis copes beautifully, the lap times are exactly where we want them to be, we’re creeping up the leaderboard. Time for my little snooze methinks, just to reboot my brain before my stint. All is well.

Then that tap on the shoulder. Turns out the smoke was coming from hot oil seeping out of a crack in the gearbox casing. The reason the car smoked less was simply that it was running out of oil to burn. And then, fairly inevitably the gearbox seized, leaving Louis with a single speed Falcon in which to limp back to the pits and retire.

“And then, inevitably, the gearbox seized, leaving a single-speed Falcon”

In many ways it’s been another classic year for the Frankel gang at Spa, maintaining our fine traditions of starting nowhere and being back in the bar before the race is over. Do I mind? A bit, but it’s still been a cracking weekend with friends and family and watching an incredible array of some of the world’s greatest race cars tackle one of its very greatest race tracks.

Most of all I love how we go about this race – the approach is to take nothing seriously until you’re actually in the car, because that way if you don’t get in the car you’ve still had an enormous amount of fun. And besides, why else are we doing it? We’re not coming here to get noticed or in any other way advance our lives or careers. It’s just fun, an enormous amount of fun, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Apart perhaps from having some slightly better luck. That would definitely improve matters further still. Maybe next year…