I forgot about this story until I was responding the other day in one of the forum threads.
Many years ago, I participated in a 6 hours race. However, the race started at 6PM and was to run to midnight (and it was about 98F when the race was starting). Our normal NASA events, ended at 5PM so we had the endurance race start an hour after.
I was asked to be part of a 3-drive team. The car wasn't anything impressive. It was a "Spec Focus" (Ford Focus racing car). For those that don't know, there used to be a racing series for the Ford Focus and Ford sold a racing package to make it a "spec" series. Not the fastest thing, but anything with a full cage, racing seat and fully gutted is a blast to drive. Of the three drivers, one was from out of town and the other had very little W2W experience. I didn't want the out-of-town drivers to drive all that way and have a mechanical issue make it so he couldn't drive, so I had him drive first. The inexperienced driver, I didn't want him driving in the dark, so I had him go the second stint. That left the final stint in the dark to me. The owner of the car put some rally lights on the front to help at night. This track we were using isn't really setup for night driving and I had never driven it at night.
The first stint goes nice and easy. The second stint starts and it was summer so it's a lot of light left and he gets going. After about 45 minutes, he comes in for fuel. While fueling, he decides to turn on the lights. As soon as he does that, the car dies. We push the car in the pit lane and have him jump start it, then he's off again. About 10 minutes later, he comes in again complaining about an issue. Everyone looks over the car and sees nothing so we send him back out. Another 10 minutes and he's coming in. At this point, they say let's just do the driver change now which is going to put me in the car for over 2 hours since he's stint is being cut short.
While they are gassing up the car, I throw my HANS on and then my helmet. I get strapped into the car and I'm off. On the second lap, I get a Black Flag. I come in to see what's up. The rear lights on the car aren't working. Basically, the way the owner wired in the rally lights was to tap into the rear lighting. So I had to shut off the rally lights at that point and rely on some 15 year old halogen bulbs...
I'm back out and now I can barely see anything. I'm flying down the back straight at full speed and I'm thinking "there is a chicane up here some where"... then I go flying into grass thinking "there it is". I get back onto the track and say to myself "you've driven this track thousands of times, get your head together". At that point I had to figure out of way to see where I needed to be but drive as fast as I could. I figured out that I could look between the side mirror and the A-pillar of the car to see the side of the track. That allowed me to get my bearings and start laying down laps.
Laps started to tick away in the dark. Fighting cars left and right that were multiple different classes. At one point, I had a multi lap battle with a friend in a Porsche Spec 944 until he went off the track.
After a while, I noticed on the back straight that my steering wheel was a little off center the left but the car was driving straight. It can happen in a car where you hit a bump or curb too hard and the steering is off, so I just reset my hands and kept going. After several more laps, coming out of the final corner, which is one of the slowest corners, the car would be unstable. When going down the main front straight, it goes up a hill to the left and over the hill (where you cannot see it) it goes down to the right (and you are flat out). There is a heavy breaking zone at the bottom of the hill. I came over the hill at full throttle, slammed on the brakes as usual and the rear of the car was dancing all around. It took everything I could to control it. So, I kept driving. A few more laps of the same thing, at the bottom of that hill is a right followed by a quick left. I turned right, then turned left and the car went straight... At that point I knew I needed to get back to the pits.
I drove around the track at a slow pace and came into the pits. My team looked like the crew in Days of Thunder eating ice cream, but instead they were drinking beers. They yelled "What are you doing?". I said "Something is broke". The crew, "Looks fine from here". At that point, I unbuckle the harness and get out. They come over and we are looking around the car and no one is seeing anything. One of the guys kicks the left (US driver's side) rear tire, and the whole wheel and brake assembly fall off the car. We looked at the time and there was only 30 minutes left in the race.
Looking back at that now, who knows how bad that would have been if that came off while actually in motion. It would have likely ripped the brake cable out and I would have lost all braking pressure. I had been in the car about 2 hours at that time. Most people when they do track days do 20-25 minute sessions. It's a lot of concentration to run those types of events.
Assetto fanboys would kill me 
And don't get me wrong, I have around 1000 hours in AC1 on PC and console, I like it. My friend is a spotter of Piotr Więcek, multiple Drift Masters champion who also competed in Formula Drift (Worthouse Drift Team). He says that during sliding Live for Speed still has the most realistic tyre model. He drives with Piotr in trainings (in a 1000 hp car), he comes from simracing, they use Assetto Corsa and LFS as a training tool.
He puts them on their roofs and says "goodnight" to them, and "good morning" 
I love to drive the R8 V10 Plus in Project CARS 2 
