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 entered the conversation. 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.

Then life happened.

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 Nürburgring 24 is not simply another endurance race.

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.

The race had other ideas.

An early accident put that goal out of reach almost immediately. Repairs followed. Incident points accumulated. The perfect race disappeared long before the halfway mark.

Yet the car continued.

So did we.

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 sleep.

That left only one solution.

A quad stint.

Four uninterrupted hours around the Nürburgring.

The idea sounds questionable on paper.

It felt even worse in practice.

Both of us experienced something neither had encountered before. 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 recognize the mistakes as they happen.

You know your reactions are slowing.

You know your focus is fading.

Yet the race continues.

Both of us made significant mistakes during these marathon stints. Looking back, they were inevitable. The challenge was no longer simply driving quickly. It was maintaining enough concentration to keep the car pointed in the correct direction.

The Nürburgring has a way of exposing limits.

Over twenty-four hours, it found ours.

Equal Parts

One statistic from the race still feels impossible.

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 workload somehow split perfectly down the middle.

Eighty-five laps each.

A fitting outcome for a race that required every available ounce of effort from both drivers.

The Finish

When the checkered flag finally arrived, we had climbed from 22nd to 17th in class.

The result was respectable.

The accomplishment felt much larger.

Because our original goal had not been achieved.

We suffered damage.

We accumulated incident points.

We made mistakes.

Ninety-seven incident points, to be exact. Thirty-nine credited to Maynard and fifty-eight to Griffin.

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 any finishing position.

Lessons Learned

Some races teach you about setup philosophy.

Some teach you about racecraft.

Some teach you about strategy.

This one taught us about limits.

The physical limit.

The mental limit.

The point where determination alone is no longer enough.

In the days following the event, the effects lingered. Four pounds disappeared. Concentration remained difficult. Sleep became mandatory rather than optional.

Neither of us had ever experienced that level of exhaustion.

Neither of us wants to experience it again.

So let the record show:

We finished.

We survived.

And never again will HundredForce attempt a twenty-four-hour race with only two drivers.

At least that's what we're saying today.