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American LeMans
SPA24: Mark Blundell Friday Blog
Former F1 and CART ace and United Autosports driver gears up for Spa 24 debut
SPEED Staff  |  Posted July 31, 2010   Francorchamps, (BEL)
Mark Blundell has been enjoying his time with United Autosports this weekend. (United Autosports)
(United Autosports’ Mark Blundell files his exclusive SPEED.com blog ahead of this afternoon’s race start. ~Ed)

It’s great to be back racing and with such a great team in United Autosports. Although I must admit it’s been a bit of a culture shock for me being back at a race meeting. When you’ve been away for seven odd years, there’s a lot that’s changed, even small things on the administration front. There’s more paperwork and more things to think about. It almost feels like it’s all new to me. But most importantly, I’m real happy and enjoying it.

A lot of people don’t realize that 24 hour events are not just about 24 hours of racing. There’s huge amounts of buildup beforehand, and the buildup is significant in the months before the race and even significant over the week of the race.

For the drivers, mechanics and everybody involved with the team, we already have a lot of work. It’s already been quite tiring. So on Friday, even though there wasn’t any on-track action, the work didn’t stop for anyone. Us drivers were doing promotional work and spent some time in technical debriefs with the engineers. We also had the parade,
With mixed conditions forecasted for the race, Blundell and company will have to be quick to adapt to dry or wet weather. (John Dagys)

The mechanics have been working away on preparing the car for the 24 hour event. And we still have 24 hours to go. Your momentum really doesn’t just stop. It’s more of a continuation. I think a lot of it is driven off of adrenaline and excitement and enthusiasm. Nine times out of ten, you don’t notice the time going by.

As I’ve quickly learned over these days and the tests earlier in the year, United Autosports has assembled a good bunch of guys and girls. We’re doing everything that we need to do. As a young team, you have to look at it and say, ‘Yeah, there could be some improvement here and there.’ But I’m talking from 20 odd years of experience at some very high levels, so it’s very easy to pick holes in things.

I think at this point, they’ve done a tremendous job. I think Richard Dean does a very good job because he’s the manager, co-owner and driver and Zak as well. They’re doing a whole lot more than just driving a race car. Again you have to commend that.

Thursday was difficult for everybody. We’re also still learning a little bit about the car and we seem to have been improving it session after session. Personally, I needed to run in the morning and then I didn’t run again until very late in the night. By then, there was a lot of oil laid down on the circuit, so we had some very interesting laps there! The oil was covering about 75 percent of the track.

Come race time, though, we feel we’re prepared to take on the challenge. Warm up will give us an indication of what to expect in the race. We should be in pretty good shape and we’re all now filled with anticipation waiting for the race to start.

~Mark

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