After the closing stages of the race, Handyy's proves consitency and endurance were the dominant factors of the race, by stretching his lead at the 3/4 mark, to secure his well deserved place at the top of the podium after 24 hours of solid race. [Bengt][Ronnie] also put up an impressive display of a full days racing and ended the race a very close 2nd. Team GTNDC started the day well, but as the day wore on, the closing stages brought them misfortunes and have to settle for the final podium spot in the Expert class

Some controversy reigned in the Amateur skill as some heats were hampered by connection issues during the night time racing, but as most (if not all) drivers managed to get race results submitted after the event and results were put straight in the end, it has been decided to allow Swordfisher the Champsionship win as he still showed an impressive feat of endurance by gaining enough points to end up overall leader.SBRM looked strong all day, but the final section of the race dropped him into 2nd overall and Turbo2 completes the podium in closely fought competition with still only a hatful of points in the whole top 3.

A huge applause to all drivers for participating in this league, especially those who raced over 6+ races of the event, and a standing ovation for drivers that completed in all 8 ! There was also, some impressive team organisation for the event with, and in the end the Team standings could not have been closer.

Finally after a few problems, drivers generally seemed happy with the organisation of the event, so the 24H Lemans has been a success in terms of league organisation, which I am most happy about :)

Details will be announced some time in 2004 for the next endurance event. Until then, get some well deserved sleep

As Lemans returns from dark nights to sunny days, driver/team standings in the championship have change significantly since the Half Way point.<\P>

Vegas Crew have taken over the Team standings, largely due to the fact that Handyy has put in a very impressive night shift, and has taken the lead in Expert division, closely followed by [Bengt][Ronnie] who has also been showing his skills in the dark.

The Amateur division has seen a large change with the 1/2 distance leader now falling off the bottom as Swordfisher endurance skills shine through. Still very close in this battle as all SBRM is lying in 2nd place only 3 points down

Hopefully the night/dawn sessions passed without too much disruption as the Admin slept. I will be catching up on any manual changes that need to be made in time for the next (and FINAL) race of the championship.

Well done drivers so far, the end is now in sight

As the Lemans 24Hour moves into the second half of the race and night is soon to become dawn, Team GTN are still top of the Teams rankings, but after a slip in the last race by the GTN-900 class, Handyy capitalises the most, moving in to 2nd place in the Expert drivers championship, and AK47 closes in on the 3rd podium spot.

Meanwhile the Amateur championship has tightened up to a handfull of points seperating the Top 3. Although TopSan remains in the No-1 spot, this could easily change by sunrise.

The night races has shown positive results with the DNS count dropping to zero for the last 2 races, so drivers have obviously got used to race procedures. Your League admin will now take a break and hopefully the league system will take care of itself for a few hours. In the event of problems during race submissions please take full details of race fininshing times so that results can be updated when they are received on my Return

Good luck all drivers during the second half of this huge feat of endurance

After a couple of further teething problems caused by the pace of the scedule, things are beginning to clam down into a hopefully steady nights racing.

Drivers are becoming better at getting qualifications in before the deadline and heats are being formed and raced quickly now.

At the 1/4 distance point, Team GTN are opening a comfortable gap in the Expert and Team standings while the AMA class is so far a closely fought battle with 3 drivers sharing 3rd place and TopSan only 12 points ahead in first spot.

The headlit racing has begun, and we wait to see how the results change as Dawn breaks.

After a serious server hickup which happened during the first qualification session, the decision has been made to extend this initial qualification session for an extra hour to allow others to qual that missed the chance during the first hour when things started going wrong.

If you managed to submit a Qualification, there is no need to do it again.

Check the Provisional results for the current qual session to see if you need to redo your quals.

The schedule has been altered slightly, making this a 25Hour race now :)

Fingers crossed everything runs smooth from now on.

The talking stops and the driving starts. Qualification Session 1 is now open. 

The waiting is almost at an end.

All Teams & Drivers should be ready to roll. Setups should be sorted. Practice sessions should be nearing the end, and everyone participating should be ready and waiting for the 24Hours of lemans that will start imminently.

Hopefully drivers prepared for the FULL 24hr marathon will have plenty of aids to keep themselves awake (and alive) including matchsticks for there eyes as a last resort.

Teams participating in a 24hr - relay drive, will be co-ordinated by now with each driver knowing their stint, and when he/she will be able to rest and sleep.

The main news site will be updated as often as possible to keep in touch with who's leading the championship and brief news articles after each race, (this may not happen for the full 24 hour period, but as often as the League admin can acheive).

The points/teams & standings will obviously be updated automatically as a session ends.

Finally, Good luck to all drivers taking part in this festive endurance race.

See you all in qualifing...

The league system has now been tested for a full 24 hours using the exact format we will follow for the full race in a few days time. Results have been generally positive, a few minor changes were made during the test and we are now 100% ready to go.

It seems most fundamental problems are now cured in the 24 Hr league format.

The Admin will sleep now and will not be able to watch live races for the next 6-8 hours. Please report feedback in the new thread that is created...

As the 24Hr Lemans draws closer each day, final preperations have been made to the F1RST leagues management to facilitate this endurance system.

Over the next days a series of test races will be posted on the schedule. The 24 hour format will be followed, only each race will be a 3 lap race, instead of the 25 laps for the full day's racing. Please do not excert un-necessary stress on your family members with this, but do try attend a race or 2 to make sure Qualification/Points & Grids are working properly if you get the chance.

There seems to be some slight confusion over the mod we will be using for the first Lemans 24 Hour league.

We will be using the Sports Car Racing (SCR) mod which is an F1 2002 based mod. So you will need to have F1 2002 installed and the SCR mod installed on top of that. You can download the SCR mod HERE.

Just to confuse matters a little bit more we will actually be racing on the Tracks that were released with the Lemans2002 mod by SSM.

F1RST has been configured to allow you to race on the SMM tracks in the SCR mod, but there is 1 thing to be careful about. If you already have the LM2002 mod installed, when you pick any of the Lemans (Night/Day/Dusk/Dawn) tracks for hosting a practice SCR session, F1RST will ask you if you want to copy the tracks from the original mod instead. Say NO and proceed to the tracks from the F1RST AutoDownload system. If you ignore this advice the track will not load.

The schedule is ready. The countdown to the first 24 Hour league has begun,

It was scarey just entering the race dates and times to cover a 24 hour period. Study it will you will start to realise the dauting task of anyone hoping to drive the full 24 hours.

You are of course welcome to only qualify and race in any races you can make (please try not to qualify and fall asleep before your race !!!).

Team drivers are welcome to race any of the races they like to score points for the Team rankings, or for the insane there is the challenge of individual driver status. To acheive this will take some doing.

Normal League rules apply, with the ommision of the need for the heat organisation forum, as you will all be waiting online in F1RST for your race as soon as qualification ends.

Questions will be answered in the forum, and there is the possibiliy of a change of date, but if nothing drastic changes we are go for the 28th December 2003.

An important point worth mentioning in preperation for the league, and to practice on the tracks if you want to, is that if you already have the LM2002 mod installed, when you pick any of the Lemans (Night/Day/Dusk/Dawn) tracks, F1RST will ask you if you want to copy the tracks from the original mod instead. Say NO and proceed to the tracks from the F1RST AutoDownload system.

Good luck all drivers, lets see who is the REAL endurance king.

F1RST2 is pleased to annouce the Lemans 24 Hour league.

The date (as in singular) has not yet been decided but will happen over the XMas holidays. It will run in a similar method to the existing F1RST leagues with 1 HUGE difference. The schedule !

The schedule will consist of 8 races, all at Lemans circuit (with varing light intensities, dawn, day, dusk & night). Each race will be seperated by only 3 hours over a single 24 hour period.

This will consists of a 1hr qualifying slot, followed by a 2 hr race slot, repeated 8 times.

So basically there will be no time for heat organisation, you will basically be online as soon as the qualification ends, and be ready to race your heat.

For the hard core drivers you will be able to take part in every race, giving you a full 24 hour experience, although it will be possible to split the racing and accumulate points through the teams system which will be introduced very soon.

No more details as yet, but watch this space for more news on this exciting single day challenge.