IT was far from the easiest day behind the wheel Brad Schumacher has encountered, but given Sunday ended with a Bathurst 12 Hour class podium, it was one of the most rewarding.
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The Bathurst driver marked his debut in the world-class international endurance event at Mount Panorama by placing third in Class C.
The Ginetta Australia entry he shared with Jimmy Vernon and 16-year-old Aaron Love managed to make it to the chequered flag despite encountering a host of issues and sapping cabin temperatures across the 12 hours.
“We lost the ABS, we had no traction control, we had no cool suit – it failed – and the MoTeC dash system stopped working,” Schumacher explained.
“So we had no shift lights, we couldn’t see lap times, fuel burn.
“I’m sure the cabin temperatures would have been up around 70 or 80 degrees. Even just the sweat continuously going in your eyes and your eyes were stinging as a result of that.
“Just to finish that race is a huge effort within itself, let along finish it and take home a podium result. We are pretty happy with that.
“Naturally when you look at all the cars which didn’t finish the race, I believe we finished 22nd outright so that’s not too bad.”
READ MORE: Ginetta revives Schumacher’s 12 Hour dream
The team qualified the GT4 car in 37th with a best lap time of 2:19.1270 and Schumacher improved that position in the darkness on Sunday morning. He climbed from fourth in class to first, but with daylight came the first of a string of issues.
“The ABS fault light came onto the screen heading across Skyline,” Schumacher said.
“I headed down towards The Dipper and lost the rear a little there, I thought it was just under brake a little heavy just in the turning section, but I when I got down to Forrest’s Elbow the rear completely locked.
“That sent us into a spin and into the wall there.”
Fortunately that incident only resulted in cosmetic damage, but it was the start of a number of issues. Both the car and the drivers themselves struggled.
“It was only a number of laps later that the traction control stopped working. Jimmy Vernon, who has driven V8 Supercars a number of times, he said it was harder than driving a V8 Supercar in the wet,” Schumacher said.
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“The Ginetta is really light in the rear, so it’s super, super twitchy in the rear without the traction control and ABS. Without the dash and without driver cooling, it was really, really hard work.
“I did a double stint through the middle and it towards the end of that stint I was just mentally and physically ruined.
“My reaction times were down and that’s why I lost the rear of the car heading into turn two at one point. I thankfully missed the wall.
“But we persevered and battled it out through the race and ended up third in class. We had to take a few more pit stops than we would have liked to because we were just going off what a calculated fuel burn was at that stage rather than being able to actually see it.”
Schumacher’s Ginetta completed 266 laps to place third in class behind the M Motorsport KTM X-Bow (278 laps) and JET Environmental BMW M4 (277).
