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Le Mans / ALMS
LM24: The Trek
We chronicle Highcroft Racing’s journey from Laguna Seca to Le Mans and the logistical challenges it provided.
Highcroft's Le Mans-spec Honda Performance Development ARX-01c getting loaded for its trip to JFK airport. (Highcroft Racing)
For many teams making the journey overseas for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it proves to be a logistical challenge every year. With limited cargo space, a tight schedule and the inevitable setback or two, packing up an entire team to go racing on another continent doesn’t always go exactly to plan, even for the seasoned veterans of international travel.
Now imagine a team not only embarking on its first Le Mans, but also on its first flyaway race, period. That’s the situation Highcroft Racing faces this year as it makes its debut in the world’s greatest endurance race.
PHOTOS: Highcroft's Le Mans Preparations
It’s a colossal effort of extreme magnitude, but the Duncan Dayton-owned organization hasn’t been taking the challenge lightly. The reigning American Le Mans Series LMP1 champions have been preparing for months back at its Danbury, Conn. shop.
“We’ve been doing it on paper for a while, with the anticipation of going,” explains team manager Robin Hill. “But at one point we had to bite the bullet and say, ‘Yes, we’re going.’ We did that as soon as we found out that we got the invite in February. Then it was a case of organizing everything.”
While in the middle of gearing up for its ALMS title defense, Highcroft began Le Mans preparations in earnest before the drop of the green flag at Sebring in March. From ordering custom-built shipping crates to coordinating travel plans, every detail of the team’s program had to be laid out months in advance of the actual race.
But it wasn’t until May that it truly became crunch time for the team. With a six-hour race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and a five-day turnaround window from the completion of the race and the time the car and equipment needed to be at JFK Airport in New York for transport, there was no room for error.
Highcroft’s two transporters began its 3,000-mile cross-country journey from Salinas, Calif. to its Danbury, Conn. just hours after the checkered flag on May 23. Driving straight through alternating drivers, the trucks arrived back at its shop late Monday evening, giving the crew just over two days to tear down the car and rebuild it into Le Mans-spec, which featured 133 specific parts which were different from the team’s standard ALMS kit.
By Saturday, May 29, the car and the array of support equipment was loaded up and transported to JFK for its flight to London Heathrow airport. From there, everything was loaded into a rented transporter from the U.K. and driven down to France.
The crew was close in pursuit. Hill and logistics manager Kasper Fellmann left for France on June 1, while the rest of the team flew out on June 3. By Saturday, they began setting up at the track, with the HPD ARX-01c going through scrutineering in downtown Le Mans on Sunday.
“Being the first time this team has done a flyaway race, there was an awful lot of prep work in just building and organizing stuff just to be able to transport things out of our semis into containers that are user-friendly once we got over here,” Hill says. “It’s no good just throwing everything in a box and having to rip everything out. So [the key] has been to get everything organized.”
Being under such a tight time frame, there was no option to ship one of its transporters over to France by boat. Instead, everything from sub-assembly components to additional sets of bodywork had to get packed away in custom-built crates for the 3,600-mile trans-Atlantic flight.
In addition to its HPD ARX-01c, now outfitted in its new Le Mans-spec low-downforce body kit, the team brought two additional front and rear ends, two and a half complete sets of bodywork, two engines, two additional gearboxes and ten sets of wheels. Along with various other support equipment, the total weight of the cargo was over 4 tons.
Limited with weight and space restrictions, Highcroft was unable to bring the same level of support equipment they usually rely on in Stateside. With heavy machinery being rented on-site at the track, it helped them keep within their weight allotment.
“We had to be smart about what we took,” Hill says. “It wasn’t so much the weight, but the footprint. When you have two complete sets of bodywork plus a third front and rear end, it’s not that much weight, but it takes up an awful lot of space on the plane.”
While Le Mans may be the team’s first flyaway race, international travel is nothing new to team manager Hill. A veteran of CART and Champ Car, the Australian-born worked for teams such as Chip Ganassi Racing, American Spirit Team Johansson and Rocketsports, that competed in races around the globe.
“The first time that any of the Champ Car teams did a flyaway race, it was a complete disaster,” Hill says. “Everyone took everything and their kitchen sink! Obviously, the process got streamlined as there were more and more flyaways.”
Hill has taken lessons from those experiences and have helped streamline the process. While he's been to Le Mans as a spectator, this is Hill's first time working the 24-hour classic. In fact, only three of the 20 core crew members have done it before.
To speed up its learning curve, the team has hired four veteran crew members to give a helping hand throughout the week. Each boasting nearly 20 years of experience at Circuit de La Sarthe, the talented group of British mechanics have worked with U.S.-based teams such as Intersport Racing in the past. They’ve also been able to assist Highcroft with transport of hazardous-classified materials, such as aerosols, that would cost a fortune to ship by plane.
“We’ve brought them in just for their base knowledge,” Hill says. “They have helped us get through tech, deal with the French, and basically be an extra set of eyes and ears for us. There’s things over here that we just don’t know about. Even the guys who have been here before say it’s changed a lot. So we needed people with some extra insight into how they function over here.”
There are certainly many unknowns when taking a team to a foreign country, but as Highcroft has quickly learned, it also has had to adapt to different sanctioning bodies. With IMSA not in control at Le Mans, Hill and company report directly to the ACO, an experience that’s new for the team.
“For us going over here for the first time, we didn’t know quite what to expect,” Hill says. “In the ALMS, we know if we have a problem with something, we could go see Scot Elkins or Beaux Barfield or Scott Atherton. We’ve got the names of people here, but we don’t have a relationship with these people. We have to go over there very humble and respectful.”
While the team shifts into race-mode at 3 p.m. on Saturday for the start, the focus on getting everything back Stateside will come shortly after the finish 24 hours later. Hill doesn’t expect any major hurdles, especially with a three-week window between Le Mans and the next ALMS round at Miller Motorsports Park in July.
“If all of the paperwork is done properly on the way out, it should be pretty clear sailing coming back,” Hill says. “We anticipate finishing the race on Sunday, working Monday to load everything up. Later that afternoon, they’ll be picking up the car. That next morning, they’ll pick up all of the freight. It should be back to the States on Friday.”
If Highcroft can claim top honors in LMP2, it will be all the better for Hill, Dayton and company as they return to their happy hunting grounds. A win, or even a finish, in one of the most demanding endurance races in the world, would reaffirm the team’s level of professionalism and preparation on the international stage.
“It’s a challenge,” Hill says. “If you can pull it off and do it right, and it looks good and you get the right results, you can sit back and say you did a good job. If not, then you can look at it an analyze it so for next time you’re going to be better prepared.”
And with Dayton having the long-term goal of winning Le Mans outright by 2016, you can be sure Highcroft will be racking up the frequent flier miles in the years to come.
Now imagine a team not only embarking on its first Le Mans, but also on its first flyaway race, period. That’s the situation Highcroft Racing faces this year as it makes its debut in the world’s greatest endurance race.
PHOTOS: Highcroft's Le Mans Preparations
It’s a colossal effort of extreme magnitude, but the Duncan Dayton-owned organization hasn’t been taking the challenge lightly. The reigning American Le Mans Series LMP1 champions have been preparing for months back at its Danbury, Conn. shop.
“We’ve been doing it on paper for a while, with the anticipation of going,” explains team manager Robin Hill. “But at one point we had to bite the bullet and say, ‘Yes, we’re going.’ We did that as soon as we found out that we got the invite in February. Then it was a case of organizing everything.”
While in the middle of gearing up for its ALMS title defense, Highcroft began Le Mans preparations in earnest before the drop of the green flag at Sebring in March. From ordering custom-built shipping crates to coordinating travel plans, every detail of the team’s program had to be laid out months in advance of the actual race.
But it wasn’t until May that it truly became crunch time for the team. With a six-hour race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and a five-day turnaround window from the completion of the race and the time the car and equipment needed to be at JFK Airport in New York for transport, there was no room for error.
Highcroft’s two transporters began its 3,000-mile cross-country journey from Salinas, Calif. to its Danbury, Conn. just hours after the checkered flag on May 23. Driving straight through alternating drivers, the trucks arrived back at its shop late Monday evening, giving the crew just over two days to tear down the car and rebuild it into Le Mans-spec, which featured 133 specific parts which were different from the team’s standard ALMS kit.
By Saturday, May 29, the car and the array of support equipment was loaded up and transported to JFK for its flight to London Heathrow airport. From there, everything was loaded into a rented transporter from the U.K. and driven down to France.
The crew was close in pursuit. Hill and logistics manager Kasper Fellmann left for France on June 1, while the rest of the team flew out on June 3. By Saturday, they began setting up at the track, with the HPD ARX-01c going through scrutineering in downtown Le Mans on Sunday.
“Being the first time this team has done a flyaway race, there was an awful lot of prep work in just building and organizing stuff just to be able to transport things out of our semis into containers that are user-friendly once we got over here,” Hill says. “It’s no good just throwing everything in a box and having to rip everything out. So [the key] has been to get everything organized.”
Being under such a tight time frame, there was no option to ship one of its transporters over to France by boat. Instead, everything from sub-assembly components to additional sets of bodywork had to get packed away in custom-built crates for the 3,600-mile trans-Atlantic flight.
In addition to its HPD ARX-01c, now outfitted in its new Le Mans-spec low-downforce body kit, the team brought two additional front and rear ends, two and a half complete sets of bodywork, two engines, two additional gearboxes and ten sets of wheels. Along with various other support equipment, the total weight of the cargo was over 4 tons.
Limited with weight and space restrictions, Highcroft was unable to bring the same level of support equipment they usually rely on in Stateside. With heavy machinery being rented on-site at the track, it helped them keep within their weight allotment.
“We had to be smart about what we took,” Hill says. “It wasn’t so much the weight, but the footprint. When you have two complete sets of bodywork plus a third front and rear end, it’s not that much weight, but it takes up an awful lot of space on the plane.”
While Le Mans may be the team’s first flyaway race, international travel is nothing new to team manager Hill. A veteran of CART and Champ Car, the Australian-born worked for teams such as Chip Ganassi Racing, American Spirit Team Johansson and Rocketsports, that competed in races around the globe.
“The first time that any of the Champ Car teams did a flyaway race, it was a complete disaster,” Hill says. “Everyone took everything and their kitchen sink! Obviously, the process got streamlined as there were more and more flyaways.”
Hill has taken lessons from those experiences and have helped streamline the process. While he's been to Le Mans as a spectator, this is Hill's first time working the 24-hour classic. In fact, only three of the 20 core crew members have done it before.
To speed up its learning curve, the team has hired four veteran crew members to give a helping hand throughout the week. Each boasting nearly 20 years of experience at Circuit de La Sarthe, the talented group of British mechanics have worked with U.S.-based teams such as Intersport Racing in the past. They’ve also been able to assist Highcroft with transport of hazardous-classified materials, such as aerosols, that would cost a fortune to ship by plane.
“We’ve brought them in just for their base knowledge,” Hill says. “They have helped us get through tech, deal with the French, and basically be an extra set of eyes and ears for us. There’s things over here that we just don’t know about. Even the guys who have been here before say it’s changed a lot. So we needed people with some extra insight into how they function over here.”
There are certainly many unknowns when taking a team to a foreign country, but as Highcroft has quickly learned, it also has had to adapt to different sanctioning bodies. With IMSA not in control at Le Mans, Hill and company report directly to the ACO, an experience that’s new for the team.
“For us going over here for the first time, we didn’t know quite what to expect,” Hill says. “In the ALMS, we know if we have a problem with something, we could go see Scot Elkins or Beaux Barfield or Scott Atherton. We’ve got the names of people here, but we don’t have a relationship with these people. We have to go over there very humble and respectful.”
While the team shifts into race-mode at 3 p.m. on Saturday for the start, the focus on getting everything back Stateside will come shortly after the finish 24 hours later. Hill doesn’t expect any major hurdles, especially with a three-week window between Le Mans and the next ALMS round at Miller Motorsports Park in July.
“If all of the paperwork is done properly on the way out, it should be pretty clear sailing coming back,” Hill says. “We anticipate finishing the race on Sunday, working Monday to load everything up. Later that afternoon, they’ll be picking up the car. That next morning, they’ll pick up all of the freight. It should be back to the States on Friday.”
If Highcroft can claim top honors in LMP2, it will be all the better for Hill, Dayton and company as they return to their happy hunting grounds. A win, or even a finish, in one of the most demanding endurance races in the world, would reaffirm the team’s level of professionalism and preparation on the international stage.
“It’s a challenge,” Hill says. “If you can pull it off and do it right, and it looks good and you get the right results, you can sit back and say you did a good job. If not, then you can look at it an analyze it so for next time you’re going to be better prepared.”
And with Dayton having the long-term goal of winning Le Mans outright by 2016, you can be sure Highcroft will be racking up the frequent flier miles in the years to come.
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