As the Spa 24 Hours celebrates its 90th anniversary this weekend, GARY WATKINS retells the story of the incredible 1992 finish with the help of protagonists Steve Soper and Eric van de Poele
Steve Soper wasn't best pleased. He was shaved, showered and ready to fly home to see his new-born daughter. But Bigazzi team owner Gabriele Rafanelli could smell victory and had other ideas.
Rafanelli reckoned Soper and team-mates Jean-Michel Martin and Christian Danner could still win the 1992 Spa 24 Hours touring car classic. That was why he wanted his star driver back behind the wheel of the second-placed BMW M3. The boss got his way and set up a thrilling dash to the flag that resulted in what remains the closest finish in the 90-year history of the Belgian enduro.
Soper, who by his own admission was no fan of 24-hour races, wasn't sure that putting his dirty overalls back on was going to be worth the effort. The leading Schnitzer BMW driven by Eric van de Poele, who was teamed with Joachim Winkelhock and Altfrid Heger, had been in front since Saturday evening in what was always going to be a race fought out by the five factory M3s split across three teams. Now the leader was the better part of a lap up the road and, in Soper's eyes, out of reach.
"I told Gabs that I was back off to London, and he told me that I wasn't going anywhere," recalls Soper, who'd already made a mad dash back and forth to London on Friday night to be present at the birth of his first daughter.
"Gabs reckoned we could still win the race, but that was normal for him. We were going to win every race we entered, even if there was a rod hanging out of the engine."
The start of the 1992 event © LAT |
Spa stalwart Martin had taken over from Soper and Danner was due to complete the final stint, but Rafanelli knew that Soper was the right man to try to chase down the rival Schnitzer car.
"I wanted someone angry enough to drive like crazy and get the car to the front to win the 24 Hours," explains Rafanelli. "Steve was that man. I told him he was getting back in the f***ing car."
The Schnitzer car had been the better part of two laps ahead after Soper had touched a backmarker and had to make a quick stop for repairs at 10am on Sunday morning, but the need for a new driveshaft with just over two hours to go robbed van de Poele and his team-mates of one of those laps.
That explains why Rafanelli had the scent of victory. The Schnitzer car had come into the pits for what turned out to be a four-and-half-minute stop just before the 22-hour mark. The time remaining on the clock when van de Poele returned to the track was ever so slightly longer than a Group A Bimmer would normally go on a tank of fuel. The Bigazzi team was confident that the leader was going to have to stop again.
What Soper calls "a heated discussion" with his team boss almost certainly played a part in the dramatic finish to the race after he was reluctantly strapped back into the car in the penultimate hour.
"When I did get in, I was probably more hyped up and aggressive than I would normally have been at the end of a 24-hour race," explains the British tin-top legend. "I drove like crazy. At the start of my stint I was probably taking two or three seconds a lap out of the leader, then all of a sudden, I was taking five or six out of him."
Van de Poele was under strict instructions from the beginning to conserve fuel to try to make it to the end, but Schnitzer didn't make the decision to forgo another pitstop until the race had just over half an hour to run. Heger had been suited and booted in the pitlane and a new set of Yokohama tyres wrapped in their heated blankets.
"I'd done a bit of Group C and had learnt a few fuel-saving tricks," recalls van de Poele. "I was really confident that we could do it, but Charly [Lamm, Schnitzer's team boss] got a little bit anxious and decided not to take any risks on the fuel. There was no telemetry in those days, remember."
The lead was still up near the minute mark with 15 minutes to go, but then Schnitzer started showing the 'SLOW' board to van de Poele and waving bits of paper with 7500 scrawled on them. The message was clear: he had to cut his revs if he was to make the finish without a splash.
Pit-to-car communications were somewhat basic... © LAT |
Soper reckons van de Poele was thrown off his rhythm by the instructions being sent to him: "It messed his pace up and all of a sudden I was catching by seven, eight or even 10 seconds a lap, but I was trying to calculate how many laps we had left and was conscious that we were running out of time."
Van de Poele couldn't believe how tardily he was being told to drive: "That BMW engine had all the power at the top end, so I was so bloody slow. I thought BMW would kill me if I ran out of fuel, so what could I do?"
Van de Poele's biggest problem in trying to control the gap to his pursuer was a lack of information. The team had lost radio communication with the car during the night and, as he points out, "the information I was getting from the pitboard was one lap late".
The messages Soper was receiving weren't exactly spot on either. He was given the last-lap board early and arrived at the old Bus Stop chicane for what he erroneously thought was the final time right on van de Poele's tail. The Belgian defended, and Soper tapped him across the grass. The Bigazzi car was still ahead, but Soper had the momentum and took the lead before La Source.
The race wasn't over, however. Van de Poele now received the belated message 'ATTACK' as he passed his pit and came back at Soper around the final lap of the circuit.
Contemporary reports suggest that van de Poele was ailing in the car, the result of ultra-hot conditions and the team overlooking to fit his drinks bottle at the last, frantic stop. The stories were fuelled by a trip to the medical centre for the Belgian after he climbed out of the car.
"Everyone said it was my mistake because I was completely exhausted," he explains. "But that's not right. All the time I was in the car, I was 100 per cent. But when I opened the door and got some cold air, I was suddenly done.
"I think I did the second fastest lap by our car of the whole race at the end. We were still competitive and the only reason we didn't win was because we had lost the radio. But for that, I would have been able to control the gap without problem."
The winners on the podium © LAT |
Van de Poele, spurred on by his team, came back at Soper. It was, however, always going to be a tough ask for him to overtake: Schnitzer had opted for a longer final-drive ratio in the name of fuel economy, whereas Bigazzi went for the more 'racy' diff.
Van de Poele got close at Stavelot, but the Briton hung on to win by just 0.49s. The second-placed BMW still had a couple of litres in its tank, even though the car had gone 45 laps on a tank of petrol, whereas a normal stint as 42 to 44 laps. Today both Lamm and van de Poele reckon the correct tactic would have been to make a splash.
"In hindsight," says Lamm, "we should have pitted him early, put him on new tyres and said, 'let's go'."
Van de Poele describes his defeat at Spa '92 as the biggest disappointment of a career that would make him the most successful driver in the history of the event on five wins.
"We lost that bloody race because of the radio," he says. "With the radio, I would have been able to control the race, no problem. My disappointment was unbelievable: I still go crazy when I think of that race."
Soper admits that he was nonplussed about the whole affair. His strongest emotion after the finish was annoyance at having to don his overalls again: "It didn't mean much at the time because I was so irritated at having to drive again."
That annoyance was fuelled by Bigazzi's celebrations after the race. Shower number two after a champagne-soaking on the podium was followed by Soper being dumped in a muddy pond in the paddock.
"I ended up showering three times in the space of a couple of hours," he remembers. "All I really wanted to do was to go home and see my daughter."
As the Spa 24 Hours celebrates its 90th anniversary this weekend, GARY WATKINS retells the story of the incredible 1992 finish with the help of protagonists Steve Soper and Eric van de Poele
Steve Soper wasn't best pleased. He was shaved, showered and ready to fly home to see his new-born daughter. But Bigazzi team owner Gabriele Rafanelli could smell victory and had other ideas.
Rafanelli reckoned Soper and team-mates Jean-Michel Martin and Christian Danner could still win the 1992 Spa 24 Hours touring car classic. That was why he wanted his star driver back behind the wheel of the second-placed BMW M3. The boss got his way and set up a thrilling dash to the flag that resulted in what remains the closest finish in the 90-year history of the Belgian enduro.
Soper, who by his own admission was no fan of 24-hour races, wasn't sure that putting his dirty overalls back on was going to be worth the effort. The leading Schnitzer BMW driven by Eric van de Poele, who was teamed with Joachim Winkelhock and Altfrid Heger, had been in front since Saturday evening in what was always going to be a race fought out by the five factory M3s split across three teams. Now the leader was the better part of a lap up the road and, in Soper's eyes, out of reach.
"I told Gabs that I was back off to London, and he told me that I wasn't going anywhere," recalls Soper, who'd already made a mad dash back and forth to London on Friday night to be present at the birth of his first daughter.
"Gabs reckoned we could still win the race, but that was normal for him. We were going to win every race we entered, even if there was a rod hanging out of the engine."
The start of the 1992 event © LAT |
Spa stalwart Martin had taken over from Soper and Danner was due to complete the final stint, but Rafanelli knew that Soper was the right man to try to chase down the rival Schnitzer car.
"I wanted someone angry enough to drive like crazy and get the car to the front to win the 24 Hours," explains Rafanelli. "Steve was that man. I told him he was getting back in the f***ing car."
The Schnitzer car had been the better part of two laps ahead after Soper had touched a backmarker and had to make a quick stop for repairs at 10am on Sunday morning, but the need for a new driveshaft with just over two hours to go robbed van de Poele and his team-mates of one of those laps.
That explains why Rafanelli had the scent of victory. The Schnitzer car had come into the pits for what turned out to be a four-and-half-minute stop just before the 22-hour mark. The time remaining on the clock when van de Poele returned to the track was ever so slightly longer than a Group A Bimmer would normally go on a tank of fuel. The Bigazzi team was confident that the leader was going to have to stop again.
What Soper calls "a heated discussion" with his team boss almost certainly played a part in the dramatic finish to the race after he was reluctantly strapped back into the car in the penultimate hour.
"When I did get in, I was probably more hyped up and aggressive than I would normally have been at the end of a 24-hour race," explains the British tin-top legend. "I drove like crazy. At the start of my stint I was probably taking two or three seconds a lap out of the leader, then all of a sudden, I was taking five or six out of him."
Van de Poele was under strict instructions from the beginning to conserve fuel to try to make it to the end, but Schnitzer didn't make the decision to forgo another pitstop until the race had just over half an hour to run. Heger had been suited and booted in the pitlane and a new set of Yokohama tyres wrapped in their heated blankets.
"I'd done a bit of Group C and had learnt a few fuel-saving tricks," recalls van de Poele. "I was really confident that we could do it, but Charly [Lamm, Schnitzer's team boss] got a little bit anxious and decided not to take any risks on the fuel. There was no telemetry in those days, remember."
The lead was still up near the minute mark with 15 minutes to go, but then Schnitzer started showing the 'SLOW' board to van de Poele and waving bits of paper with 7500 scrawled on them. The message was clear: he had to cut his revs if he was to make the finish without a splash.
Pit-to-car communications were somewhat basic... © LAT |
Soper reckons van de Poele was thrown off his rhythm by the instructions being sent to him: "It messed his pace up and all of a sudden I was catching by seven, eight or even 10 seconds a lap, but I was trying to calculate how many laps we had left and was conscious that we were running out of time."
Van de Poele couldn't believe how tardily he was being told to drive: "That BMW engine had all the power at the top end, so I was so bloody slow. I thought BMW would kill me if I ran out of fuel, so what could I do?"
Van de Poele's biggest problem in trying to control the gap to his pursuer was a lack of information. The team had lost radio communication with the car during the night and, as he points out, "the information I was getting from the pitboard was one lap late".
The messages Soper was receiving weren't exactly spot on either. He was given the last-lap board early and arrived at the old Bus Stop chicane for what he erroneously thought was the final time right on van de Poele's tail. The Belgian defended, and Soper tapped him across the grass. The Bigazzi car was still ahead, but Soper had the momentum and took the lead before La Source.
The race wasn't over, however. Van de Poele now received the belated message 'ATTACK' as he passed his pit and came back at Soper around the final lap of the circuit.
Contemporary reports suggest that van de Poele was ailing in the car, the result of ultra-hot conditions and the team overlooking to fit his drinks bottle at the last, frantic stop. The stories were fuelled by a trip to the medical centre for the Belgian after he climbed out of the car.
"Everyone said it was my mistake because I was completely exhausted," he explains. "But that's not right. All the time I was in the car, I was 100 per cent. But when I opened the door and got some cold air, I was suddenly done.
"I think I did the second fastest lap by our car of the whole race at the end. We were still competitive and the only reason we didn't win was because we had lost the radio. But for that, I would have been able to control the gap without problem."
The winners on the podium © LAT |
Van de Poele, spurred on by his team, came back at Soper. It was, however, always going to be a tough ask for him to overtake: Schnitzer had opted for a longer final-drive ratio in the name of fuel economy, whereas Bigazzi went for the more 'racy' diff.
Van de Poele got close at Stavelot, but the Briton hung on to win by just 0.49s. The second-placed BMW still had a couple of litres in its tank, even though the car had gone 45 laps on a tank of petrol, whereas a normal stint as 42 to 44 laps. Today both Lamm and van de Poele reckon the correct tactic would have been to make a splash.
"In hindsight," says Lamm, "we should have pitted him early, put him on new tyres and said, 'let's go'."
Van de Poele describes his defeat at Spa '92 as the biggest disappointment of a career that would make him the most successful driver in the history of the event on five wins.
"We lost that bloody race because of the radio," he says. "With the radio, I would have been able to control the race, no problem. My disappointment was unbelievable: I still go crazy when I think of that race."
Soper admits that he was nonplussed about the whole affair. His strongest emotion after the finish was annoyance at having to don his overalls again: "It didn't mean much at the time because I was so irritated at having to drive again."
That annoyance was fuelled by Bigazzi's celebrations after the race. Shower number two after a champagne-soaking on the podium was followed by Soper being dumped in a muddy pond in the paddock.
"I ended up showering three times in the space of a couple of hours," he remembers. "All I really wanted to do was to go home and see my daughter."
