Longest Endurance Race?

The Longest Day at Nelson thread got me thinking.  What is the longest sanctioned closed course endurance race ever?    Rally events are multi day and are similar to this but not continuous by design.  

Has there ever been an endurance race that has the stated goal of running until only 1 car in each class remains?   

Other then the insane amount of tires required I wonder how long that would take.  Mazda famously said the 787B could of went another 24 Hours or more which implies that the other cars could not have.  Obviously total distance covered would determine the true winner otherwise you would just sit in the pits until only 1 car remains then go run. 

And Spec 1996 Corolla and 22re toyota pickup racing were born.  

The issue with going much beyond 24 hours is logistics and cost. At a certain point to control cost you'll reduce speed potential and the line between racing and an endurance exercise would be blurred. A simple example of this would be tire class restrictions not allowing 200TW tires or lower or restricting fuel to pump gas. 

I know that there was a 25 hr race held in Calfornia for a few years.

jimbbski said:

I know that there was a 25 hr race held in Calfornia for a few years.

25 hours of thunderhill?

 Look up Marathon de la Route, it was an 84 hour race at the Nurburgring. It was supposed to be a track version of the Liège–Rome–Liège road race, which unlike modern rallies was continuous without stops.

A lot of the winners were touring cars instead of high strung sports cars. This was the first race event Mazda entered the rotary with a Cosmo, one placed 4th and the other broke an axle near the end.

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

The issue with going much beyond 24 hours is logistics and cost. At a certain point to control cost you'll reduce speed potential and the line between racing and an endurance exercise would be blurred. A simple example of this would be tire class restrictions not allowing 200TW tires or lower or restricting fuel to pump gas. 

With modern safety requirements and personnel, I'm sure the logistics is why they don't do a lot of them now. However, GPS transponders make scoring much much easier.

Champcar held a 36 hour endurance race in 2013. But they haven't done anymore like that. 

Not sure about cars, but seven day bicycle races in velodromes used to be a thing.

or longest distance race , maybe London to Sydney rally 

or whats the longest  test a car maker has done  on a track ?

100,000 mile test  - at 60mph thats 1666 hours or 69.4 days......

that sounds like too much for a car company to take on  in a single test .

ProDarwin said:

jimbbski said:

I know that there was a 25 hr race held in Calfornia for a few years.

25 hours of thunderhill?

The 25 hours of Thunderhill has been run every year since 2003, although this year's race was cancelled due to covid-19.  25 hours was a deliberate attempt to be 1 hour longer than Le Mans and other 24 hour endurance races, and it was touted as the longest endurance race in the world when it started.  Someone may have set up a 26 hour race since then, I'm not sure. :)

j_tso said:

 Look up Marathon de la Route, it was an 84 hour race at the Nurburgring. It was supposed to be a track version of the Liège–Rome–Liège road race, which unlike modern rallies was continuous without stops.

A lot of the winners were touring cars instead of high strung sports cars. This was the first race event Mazda entered the rotary with a Cosmo, one placed 4th and the other broke an axle near the end.

 

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

The issue with going much beyond 24 hours is logistics and cost. At a certain point to control cost you'll reduce speed potential and the line between racing and an endurance exercise would be blurred. A simple example of this would be tire class restrictions not allowing 200TW tires or lower or restricting fuel to pump gas. 

With modern safety requirements and personnel, I'm sure the logistics is why they don't do a lot of them now. However, GPS transponders make scoring much much easier.

Some very interesting cars in that event Porsche won it one time with a  sportomatic. Other high placing cars included daf 55 and 44 with cvt transmission, the last year the event was held it was extended to 96 hours.

http://touringcarracing.net/Races/1967%20Nurburgring%2084hrs.html

The 1908 New York to Paris race took 169 days, and apparently was about 22,000 miles from start to end.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/paris-or-bust-the-great-new-york-to-paris-auto-race-of-1908-116784616/

sergio said:

Champcar held a 36 hour endurance race in 2013. But they haven't done anymore like that. 

That race was nuts.  We finished 12th.