Adelaide ALMS 31/12/2000   Raceday 4 Last Hour Or So   Track images from the www.americanlemans.com sitelink Darkness approaching with just over an hour left (Qualifying shot, above). Gabriele Rafanelli is seen slipping behind the pits with that new lady friend of his. Keep her happy for another 60 minutes, Gabriele (oh, what idiot wrote that?). Franz Konrad asks if he can join them. Rafanelli is carrying a piece of rope from a friend's winning yacht. A good luck charm, allegedly. But is she two timing the Italian? Pobst’ Porsche has a jammed starter motor. "Cruel," says Randy. "We're not allowed to push start it." Cruel? See Olive Garden Lola, below. Didier de Radigues takes over for the run to the flag in the second placed Lola. Bodywork is taped up, related to that earlier wheel / tyre problem. Mimmo: "I'm very happy. We'll drive it very, very carefully. We've had bad luck this year, but now our luck has changed. We'll drive it like taxi drivers. We are back." Nine laps down, but who cares? McNish is invited to flash his lights if he wants to finish the race. de Radigues stops at the end of the Brabham Straight. Disaster for Rafanelli (transmission). Konrad to finish second? 'Brighty' goes off into the tyres. This is a race of survival. Three Vipers started. Three are still running in 1 -2 - 3 in GTS. Safety Car appears (for the first time) to remove the #12 Panoz. It gets back to the pits. Cadillac's 2001 plans will be announced "shortly" apparently. They'll be glad 2000 is all over. Perhaps Jean-Paul Driot should have stayed with a Lola (with some luck thrown in)? McNish stops for the last time. What a season he's had. He stays in for the run to the flag (35 minutes), and that's right and proper. Green flag. McNish has an enormous lead. He could stop, rest his back, have a cup of tea, iron his kilt and still get out in the lead. Milka Duno seems to be giving Stephen Watson a rest after all. No she doesn't. Their third place has been safe for hours - since the start, in fact. Dupuy takes over third overall, the sister Oreca Viper is fourth, Dirk Muller is heading for a top five finish and the GT Drivers title. #12 Panoz returns to the track, in 13th. Panoz have had a race to forget. Graf confirms it by spinning #2, a car he wasn't even down to drive. There's no racing going on, and in truth there hasn't been for hours. But it's endurance 'racing', so the survivors simply want to make it home. David Addison - the famous Mini driver - is doing a fine job for Radio Le Mans, but gets annoyed with the local midges. Barbour's team get rid of them temporarily with a blow torch. No midges in the UK, Addison. It's three below. The #6 PTG BMW has hauled itself back into contention, in third place in GT. Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich: "We cannot communicate with the #77 car by radio, so we are writing messages on the pit board. We are very sorry to lose him (McNish)." Franz Konrad is in his car for the last 20 minutes. "This is what happens when you keep going round," commented Alan Heath. McNish to make one more stop? Jones and Capello are standing by. The Scot can drive, but he can't help with the belts. Brad Jones is a useful belts doer upper. 'Brabs', 'Brighty' and 'Murph' are heading for third in class despite their problems, but McNish and Capello are heading for win number six. Beretta and Wendlinger are looking as though they'll take three of the big four and a pot of money. Oreca started with the win at Daytona, and now look like taking third and fourth overall in the last race of the year. They've out-Audied Audi. No more dramas in the last few minutes. This was an endurance race to match anything that had gone before. Bet Oreca wish it was 24 hours. McNish eases up to complete the race, the season, the millennium - and his Audi career. Michael Olsson will be wrapping up the race in due course, but that's almost it from Sportscar World. Tomorrow, we really are www.totalmotorsport.com. First stop will be the Daytona Test Days next week, which we'll have to manage, somehow, without Janos Wimpffen. He's making a recovery, but it will be a long haul for him in Seattle. Thank heavens we can say Good-Bye to the year 2000. Happy New Millennium everyone. Malcolm Cracknell PS Server down for 7 hours, the fault coinciding with the end of the race. 24 hour service? What a joke that is. Apologies everyone. Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport