25 Hours Racing in a Factory Five

Team Lawson and Factory Five West endure the 25 hours of Thunderhill!

Thunderhill, California: Factory Five customers and racers met to make history this past December 6^th & 7^th at the first ever 25 hour endurance race at Thunderhill raceway in Northern California. Here is yet another too-good-to-be-true story of Factory Five fanatics accomplishing truly remarkable things with our cars.

Background: Almost a year ago NASA (National Auto Sport Association) owner Jerry Kunzman dreamed up the idea of hosting “The World’s Longest Race”. The NASA 25 hour endurance race was born and scheduled for December at the excellent Thunderhill raceway. Minutes after the event was announced, Factory Five Challenge series racer Dan Lawson was the very first entry into the event!


Left: Bob Lawson, Mechanic/crew Chief Joe, and brother Dan	Right: The 2003 Lawson-FFR Team

Dan and his brother Bob Lawson decided this was just the kind of event that the underdog spec car could excel in. Earlier in the year FFR customer John McIver had just won an enduro event in the Midwest with his own FFR spec car (click here for story).

Dan Lawson spearheaded an effort to campaign his Factory Five in this new 25 hour event under the banner of Factory Five-West. The dust had barely settled on the 2003 FFR Challenge Series National Finals race (where Dan had just driven to an impressive 4^th place overall!) when Team Lawson gathered FFR customers and racers/volunteers to mount an effort in this incredible Endurance event.

Huge support came from Mike Easton (FFR Spec series driver), Don Vaught (FFR Coupe customer), Cosmo (Griggs racing fame), and Mike Stevens. Tim Noble (FFR Spec pilot and NASA official) helped out as the event drew nearer despite having to work full time at the event for NASA.

At the last minute Team Lawson-Factory Five West was joined by Team Factory Five East, fielding now two (2) spec cars. The original plan was to run FFR engineer Jim Schenck’s car for team two, but as fate would have it customer Gary Cheney (3^rd place FFR nationals) was successful in persuading his teammates to use his own car since he was running 4-lugs (interchangeable wheel/tires with Team one). This would turn out to be a fateful decision for team two, also known as the “Orange Crush”.

Team 1, FFR-West Drivers Team 2, FFR-East

Dan Lawson Gary Cheney

Bob Lawson Jim Schenck (FFR)

Bryan Dobbyns Dave Riha (FFR)

Brian Cates Dan Elam

Donny Edwards Leonard Conn

Dave Borden

The Racers Gather: Most drivers and crew arrived on Thursday evening. Guys came from all over the country as word had spread over the internet that pit crews were needed. The weather for the Friday practice was forecast to be cold, rainy and miserable (or really nice if you’re from Massachusetts).

Friday was an open track day for teams to practice and dial in their cars for the race that was scheduled to take place on Saturday starting at 11:00 am. Almost everyone was trackside by 10:00 am Friday morning. Both teams had plenty of set-up work to do and between the weather and the work, few drivers felt they had enough seat time to really learn the challenging course. The rain was light and scattered throughout the day but never really came down hard.

Qualifying heats were run just as the sun was setting Friday evening from 5:30 to 6:00PM. Bryan Dobyns, driving for Team one (FFR-West) qualified in 30^th position and Gary Cheney, driving for Team two (FFR-east) qualified just behind Bryan in 32^nd position out of about 70 race cars. The lighting on the cars were just not bright enough for any of the drivers to run the cars fast. That makes sense because after the additional lighting was installed, the cars were running lap times in the top 10-12 cars overall!

Race Preparation: After qualifying runs, both teams worked fairly late into the night to get last minute changes done to the cars. During qualifying (the real first time the drivers had to race in the dark), everyone realized we needed more candlepower. The crews installed additional lights on both cars to help the night driving. The FFR-East team installed a cool new aircraft fuel measuring computer that they hoped would help manage pit stops better than the dash fuel gauge and manual calculations.

The cars were ready to go by midnight and everyone tried to get some rest before the start of the race the next day.

Race Day, Saturday: The day started out in the low 50’s with on and off light rain showers. The guys had some hard decisions to make regarding tire selection… Do we go with rain tires or take a chance that the wet stuff holds off and go for speed on racing tires? That was a tough call. Team one decided to go with Kumho Victoracers and Team two went with the Toyo proxis street/rain tires.


Drivers meeting was crowded w/over 70 teams!	Pre-grid, FFR's Jim S. w/ Leonard Conn & Dan Elam

As the 11:00 am start time approached and the race cars were all staged, a military colorguard was present and country music star LeAnn Rimes sang the National Anthem. During the Anthem a group of F-15’s streaked overhead to kick things off!


Military Colorguard	Getting ready to go	Dobyns, his Dad, Dan and Bob Lawson

Drivers strapped in, the race cars headed out and the race got underway at 11:00 am PST.

Team one began to struggle as they had picked race tires and the rain began to fall almost immediately into the race. Shortly after the race began a full rainbow appeared over the track… Good Omen boys.

Omens indeed… The FFR-east team with Leonard Conn at the wheel was doing well with the rain tires. After about an hour and a half, Team two had moved from 32^nd position to ninth!

Team one was forced to stop and changeover to rain tires after struggling in the wet with the Kumhos. Team two on the other hand was storming along. Leonard radioed that the car was working great and for a while it seemed as though a 25 hour race win was conceivable.


An hour into the race team two w/Conn driving went from 32nd to 9th!	The aftermath.

What happened next was horrific. At about 90 mph Leonard drove right into the back of the car that was stopped on the track. The car was a “Radical” sports car. Think about this for a second… At close to 100 miles per hour imagine hitting another car that was not moving!

The resulting crash totaled both cars and sent both drivers to the hospital. Leonard suffered five broken bones in his right foot (although the cage was intact this was from his foot on the brake pedal).

The driver of the other car was taken to the hospital complaining of back pain but was soon released. Both cars were complete losses.The crash really brought everyone down. Knowing shortly thereafter that Leonard was OK helped a bit but the truth about racing is that these things can and do happen. The remaining team two members turned to serve as backup drivers and pit crew for team one. As the day went on team one focused on the remaining car and got back into the race.


The FFR-West car running hard despite the loss of team two.

Short note here about character here. Gary Cheney just watched his beloved dream car smashed to pieces and a good friend slightly hurt. What did he do? He turned to and asked “How can I help the rest of you guys?”. FFR president Dave Smith told him by phone that the company would give him a brand new chassis no charge.

Bryan Dobyns (lead driver and 2003 FFR-NASA Challenge Series National Champion) pitted and for fuel and driver change. Next up was driver Bob Lawson. Alternately drivers took turns behind the wheel throughout the night as the pit crew got better and better at fuel and tire stops. Keep in mind, these guys had never worked together as a pit crew and were up against pro teams. The pit next to ours was a GT-1 Porsche team training for Daytona, averaging 17 seconds for fuel/tires! (they used 17 sets of tires!).


Brian Cates gets ready for the night shift.	Night racing is scary.

The racers reported that the night driving was a real “challenge”… To give you an idea of how tough it was to drive, imagine 70 cars running flat out at night, pitting at all different times and all cars running with blindingly bright headlights. Both Dave Borden (2002 FFR-NASA Challenge Series Champion) and Donny Edwards pulled in shortly after starting their night shifts due to the challenging conditions where they just didn’t feel right.


Late night pit stop.	Engine teardown at midnight.

Shortly past midnight drivers felt the car was slowing down. The team were running 6^th place in class and had to pull in. After pitting it was revealed that two (2) of the engine pushrods were bent. In only about 45 minutes the pit crew tore down the engine, pulled out the rods and, without replacements handy, straightened them by hand with a hammer (really.)!

The car jumped back out on the track and it seemed to be making OK power. A few more hours and the sun began to rise. The spirits of the team rose as the light grew. With the cold dark dangerous night behind them, and despite the weariness everyone felt, the morning brought hopes that we could close the gap on the leaders some.

Brian Cates and Brian Dobyns racked off faster and faster lap times as they began to reel in other cars. With the engine teardown and longer than expected pit stops, the win was really beyond reach, but a strong showing and finish were looking probable. The cars actual lap times were really in the top ten, it became obvious though that the pits were killing our over-all position.


The morning sun brought higher spirits, faster pit stops, and hopes for a strong finish.

Dobyns ran hard for the last few hours and turned the car over to Bob Lawson for the last 30 minute dash for the line and a fifth place in class finish!

25 hours complete! What a weekend to remember!

With an indescribable team effort by all the drivers, crew and support folks, this weekend has to go down in Factory Five history as one of the best. The best excitement. The best displays of driving skill and car performance. What stands out more than anything however was the remarkable fellowship and teamwork. It’s been said so many times but it is really true. Factory Five customers ARE the greatest people you will ever meet!

(Photos courtesy of Dave Borden, Norm at Head-on-Photos, and other FFR Customers)

Video Clips from the 25 hours of racing:

Front straight and view of track from pits

Pit stop and return to race

Front straight at start of race

Back section of course

Pit stop with sponge Bob

Additional Photos