The Setup

Some ideas begin as jokes. This was one of them.

At some point during the buildup to the Nürburgring 24, the idea of completing the race with only two drivers was tossed around. It was never meant to become the plan. The original lineup consisted of three drivers, spreading the workload across one of the most demanding endurance races in sim racing.

A last-minute cancellation left HundredForce with a decision to make. Find a replacement, withdraw from the event, or attempt something neither of us fully understood.

We chose the third option.

In hindsight, that may have been a mistake.

The Challenge

The Nordschleife demands concentration in a way few circuits can. Every lap is over eight minutes long. Every mistake carries consequences. Every corner asks a question, and the circuit never stops asking.

The original objective was straightforward. Avoid major incidents. Stay out of trouble. Bring the Mustang home in one piece.

An early accident put that goal out of reach almost immediately. Repairs followed. Incident points accumulated. We were already managing the consequences of a race that had gone wrong.

With 22 hours remaining we regrouped, settled in, and began putting in clean laps.

The Cost of Staying Awake

The physical challenge of a two-driver Nürburgring 24 is easy to underestimate until you experience it. Dan and I alternated double stints throughout much of the event. It wasn't comfortable, but it was manageable. The plan worked.

Until it didn't.

Eventually, both of us needed more time to sleep. We stretched the driving shifts to quad stints: four hours around the Nürburgring so the other driver could rest. The idea sounds questionable on paper. It felt even worse in practice.

During those four-hour stints, we both experienced something neither had encountered before during a sim race. Not simple fatigue. Not the kind of tiredness solved by another cup of coffee.

Exhaustion.

The kind where you can actively feel your cognitive abilities deteriorating while being unable to stop it. You know your reactions are slowing. You know your focus is fading. You see the mistake coming, but it's like one of those dreams where you cannot stop what happens next, no matter how hard you try.

Both of us made significant mistakes during our respective marathon stints. Looking back, we had asked too much of ourselves. We still had the determination to continue long after we could trust our concentration.

In the days following the event, the effects lingered. I lost four pounds. Concentration remained difficult well into the week. Several times a day, I caught myself wondering: had I done permanent damage?

Neither of us had ever experienced that level of exhaustion.

The Nürburgring has a way of exposing limits.

Over twenty-four hours, it found ours.

The Finish

When the checkered flag finally arrived, we had climbed from 22nd to 17th in class. The result was respectable, but the accomplishment felt much larger.

Our original goal had not been achieved. We suffered damage. We made mistakes. We accumulated ninety-seven incident points. Thirty-nine were mine. Fifty-eight were Dan’s. By our own standards, it was far from a clean race.

But we finished.

And after twenty-four hours around the Nürburgring with only two drivers, that fact carried more significance than the finishing position.

Equal Parts

After everything, we had each completed exactly the same number of laps.

Dan Griffin completed 85 laps. I completed 85 laps.

Despite repairs, strategy changes, sleep schedules, and the chaos that naturally unfolds over twenty-four hours, the lap count somehow split perfectly down the middle.

Eighty-five laps each.

I'm proud we finished. I wouldn't choose to do it that way again.

Never again with two drivers.