The WETTEST sportscar race you've attended

[Nick49]

Hello chaps.

I will be going to the Silverstone WEC race this Sunday and the weather forecast is a bit dubious to say the least. Now I've been to a few wet sportcar races in my time; the 1982 Brands Hatch finale in October and the 2005 LMS race at Silverstone in mid August 2005 spring to mind. Both actually had very close finishes!

So what was your wettest sportscar race experience?

[Wet marshal]

My wettest sportscar race was at Brands in 1970 something?

Im sure it rained for 6 hours

I was a flag marshal, and every time Jochan Mass lapped a car,it was me who blue flagged him.

[Fogelhund]

The wettest RACE was Petit Le Mans in 2009, where it was stopped and called hours early, due to there being inches of standing water on much of the track.

The wettest RACE weekend would have been Mosport 2006 ALMS, with the remnants of Hurricane Ernst. Everything was soaked pretty much the whole weekend, up until race time. Qualifying was called off, had to sleep in the van.

[Ron S]

PLM 2009 for a race. Sebring in the late 90's it rained so hard on the Friday before the race I thought I would end up in OZ. The wind was blowing like so very hard! I remember it was sending nitrogen bottles through the air that were being used to hold race car tents down.

[Canada ALMS fan]

Petit 2009 for sportscars. It was crazy, feel bad for anyone who was camping. We drove back to the hotel after a couple of hours of red. It was a great week at the track though up to that point so I wasn't too upset.

[Rodger Davies]

WOW, you think that's a dubious weather forecast? This weekend looks positively tropical by comparison to Oulton a couple of weeks ago or the Blancpain round last year!

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

The wettest RACE was Petit Le Mans in 2009, where it was stopped and called hours early, due to there being inches of standing water on much of the track.

Me too, the slope down before the start/finish looked like a water slide in a theme park when they red flagged it. I'd spent over 40 hours travelling to get there for that race too! Ended up going to Athens for the college gridiron game instead.

[Gingers4Justice]

Le Mans 2001 was pretty spectacular, as well as parts of LM '07. In both races, the cars were struggling to keep up with the safety car!

Both were occasions when powerboats could have been classified at the finish.

[Slipknot]

Definitely Petite 09

[PatrickB]

Daytona 24 2004. When i woke up in the middle of the night in my rental car the parking lot had turned into a lake... wasn't suprised when i came home and found out they red flagged the race for like 6 hours!

[BobN]

Laguna Seca FIA GT/ PSCR 1998 Saturday. It was ankle deep in most of the paddock. Jan Lammers was absolutely sensational in a GT2 Porsche.

[cmk]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

The wettest RACE weekend would have been Mosport 2006 ALMS, with the remnants of Hurricane Ernst. Everything was soaked pretty much the whole weekend, up until race time. Qualifying was called off, had to sleep in the van.

Mosport throws up some wet weekends, but that was a doozy. I think 2007 had a particularly violent torrent where a large lake formed at the entrance to 5 one afternoon, but sun and adequate drainage prevailed. Of the 8 years I went the ALMS race itself did a remarkable job avoiding the weather. I think I only remember it being wet for the start in 01 or 02, when the polesitting Audi lost it in 5 on lap 1.

[Breitling24]

I get a bit moist everytime I attend a race.

[Rodger Davies]

oh yes, Spa 24 last year was ridiculously torrential at times last year, cars just sliding everywhere. But that's Spa, so it doesn't really count I guess.........

[KA]

FIA GT at Silverstone in 1997- wasn't the race stopped early because of the rain- I seem to remember the track was flooding at Woodcote....?

I seem to have led a pretty charmed life with the weather as the only other time I can ever really remember getting rained on much at a sportscar race was the BPR Global GT round at Silverstone in 95

[garcon]

Oulton Park 2006 (?), when Nickerbrook became an expensive car park.

[CTD]

Le Mans 2012 (the only sportscar race i've attended - yet)

[GT6]

Over the years I have been going to Le mans there have been many wet ones some before the race started with major flooding and some were the race itself was held mostly in the wet, the mclaren year 1995 was probably the worst actual race, tried to watch some racing but it was horrid, spray from the first car ment that you could see nothing for 30 seconds and even wet weather gear and brollies still could not keep the water out. Obviously the weather caused a few upsets in the race.

[Stefvh]

Spa 24h of 2003 were pretty wet.

[PascaLM]

I'm wondering if Aysedasi will post anything here . Well, this said, I remember Spa 1000 km in 1990 and Le Mans 1992 and 1995 which were horrible.

[TheNewBob]

Silverstone LMS 2005, I remember people were even spinning off at 40mph in safety car conditions. If I remember rightly a team manager's meeting was called and it was decided that if the rain didn't let up by the half way mark then they'd call it a day. Just before half distance the rain stopped and we had a lovely clear sunset.

I also remember BGT at Oulton Park last year being particularly wet, mainly drizzle in race one but for race two you'd have been better off racing a boat.

I was also present for Boss GP at Donington a couple of years ago - it was supporting Britcar so it was essentially a sportscar race meeting, and half the grid had Judd GV4s installed! But the Saturday practice session was called off with ridiculously heavy rain, which would have matched the '05 LMS race mentioned above for a flooded track.

[dj choc ice]

Newbob is correct. LMS 2005 was very wet, but the Friday practice for LMS in 2008 was pretty erm, moist as well. I remember Oulton for the British GT with the whole Knickerbrook incidents and the luckiest marshall in history. I think it was 2001 or 2002 as the Saleen's were still racing along with the GT1 Vipers.

[GT6]

Originally Posted by dj choc ice

Newbob is correct. LMS 2005 was very wet, but the Friday practice for LMS in 2008 was pretty erm, moist as well. I remember Oulton for the British GT with the whole Knickerbrook incidents and the luckiest marshall in history. I think it was 2001 or 2002 as the Saleen's were still racing along with the GT1 Vipers.

I do remember that race, the rain was coming down so hard it had no where to go and the cars were sliding off the track, we had to find shelter but in doing that we could not see what was happening, so huddled under the umbella's and watch what we could.

[Martin Bull]

Originally Posted by Wet marshal

My wettest sportscar race was at Brands in 1970 something?

1970 BOAC 1000km at Brands. Easily the wettest I've ever been to. And who could ever forget...

'Rodriguez in the rain' ?

[GT6]

The one I am watching on my PC looks very wet, feel sorry for those at silverstone, hopefully it will be dry tomorrow when I get there

[Aysedasi]

Silverstone LMS in 2005 for me too. I took both my boys for the first time. We ended up sitting in the car in the car park for an hour it was so cold and wet.