24 Hours of Chaos: Behind the Scenes with PheonIQ We Racing at the British 24Hr
Endurance karting is something completely unhinged. You throw nearly 90 karts onto a circuit, strip away sleep, add changing weather, and ask drivers and crew to push their equipment and minds to the limit for 24 continuous hours. Representing Rising Talent Academy as a journalist, I headed to Teesside Autodrome to document the highs, lows, and technical heartbreaks of PheonIQ We Racing.
My journey began straight after work on Friday night, travelling from Manchester up to Middlesbrough. By the time I checked into my hotel room around 11:00 PM, I was greeted by a massive spider chilling on the ceiling. After swiftly dealing with my first opponent of the weekend, I crashed out and woke up at 5:00 AM ready for action.
By 7:30 AM, I walked over to Tesco for supplies. As I walked out, I bumped into Matt Dajnowski heading in. He kindly offered me a lift, so we ended up as the very first people to arrive at the circuit at 8:00 AM. As the rest of the paddock pulled in, the Race Director called the entire field to a mandatory briefing after an incident the day before.
Practice and qualifying kicked off at 10:15 AM. I positioned myself in the PheonIQ We Racing gazebo to monitor the live timing screens and grabbed a quick interview with Matt. By 11:15 AM, the grid opened for team photos. Matt dragged me right into the full team photo, and I even got the chance to sit in the kart. Feeling how tight and rigid that cockpit was, I knew there was no way I could sit in it for two hours straight!
At 11:45 AM, the grid cleared, and we moved to the banking to watch the midday green flag. The atmosphere was electric. PheonIQ We Racing lined up P4 in class on a massive 89-kart grid. As the race roared to life at 12:00 PM, we cheered from the sidelines before heading back to the tent, where I grabbed lunch from the circuit café.
Endurance racing never stays smooth for long. Just an hour into the race, a small misstep during the first pit stop cost the team almost two full laps. Wanting to beat the summer heat, I ducked out at 2:00 PM to grab a pair of shorts from Primark and took a quick one-hour nap at the hotel. Unbeknownst to me, absolute chaos struck the track at the two-hour mark. The chain snapped just as Marcin started his stint. The crew mounted a rapid repair, and the kart rejoined down in P18.
Returning to the track at 5:00 PM, the evening became a steady rhythm of monitor-watching and paddock banter. At 8:00 PM, Marcin made incredible homemade soup for the team. It was so good I genuinely told him he should drop everything and become a chef.
By 11:00 PM, the busy gazebo quieted down to just me, Marcin, and Matt. While Matt stayed locked on radio comms, Marcin and I spent an hour chatting about everything from financial wisdom to stories from his younger days. At midnight, Marcin geared up for his final stint, coinciding with the mandatory technical pit stop. The PheonIQ We Racing crew executed a clinical front tyre swap, exhaust change, and oil top-up in a lightning-fast four minutes.
That left Matt and me in the tent for two hours talking about anything and everything. Overnight, the team staged a monumental fightback. Moving through the dark under the floodlights, they climbed up to P9, with Oli setting the team's fastest lap of the weekend at a blistering 1:21.540.
By 4:00 AM, Matt headed to his van for a nap, and I dozed off in a gazebo chair. Just 45 minutes later, Matt woke me in shock: one of the engines had completely given up. Matt headed back to his hotel at 5:00 AM, and I left at 5:30 AM to catch an hour of sleep.
Around sunrise, despite the failed engine, the team’s blistering pace had pushed them right back into contention for P5 in class. But luck was not on their side. Just after sunrise, the kart lost its exhaust and clutch, requiring a six-minute pit stop that dropped them back to P12.
I checked out of my hotel, grabbed my bags, and returned to the track by 9:00 AM. With 90 minutes to go, rain slicked the surface. The remaining engine was fighting for its life, resulting in six frustrating stalls in the wet conditions. At 11:30 AM, I joined Jason and the team for social filming before heading to the pit wall to watch Phil cross the finish line at 12:00 PM.
PheonIQ We Racing took the checkered flag at P13 in class and P56 overall—a huge step forward compared to last year's event.
After helping pack down the setup, I headed to the train station at 12:30 PM. Exhaustion finally won: I fell fast asleep on the train, missed my Manchester stop entirely, and woke up in Liverpool! One extra train ticket later, I finally walked through my front door in Manchester at 4:00 PM and collapsed straight into bed to prep for work the next morning.
