Daytona Test Days – Saturday Round Up
Angelelli & Werner Steal The Headlines
© Russell Wittenberg

The notable teams that for various reasons chose not to participate in Saturday’s running were the #00 Vision Crawford, #91 Riley-Matthews Riley, and the #16 Dyson and #20 Howard Crawfords.

Contrary to what we last reported, the Vision Team chose not to repair the front-end damage caused by Tony’s George off in Friday’s night practice. The severity of the damage was worse than anticipated, and the logical move was to take it back to the shop for proper repairs.

The #91 Riley Pontiac lost two engines in Friday’s running, the second causing a small fire in the engine compartment. Bill Riley was surprised when the first motor blew, as it was a fairly new unit, but explained that the second motor was a “pretty abused piece”. Riley added, “With the fire we thought it would be best to go home and take a closer look at it. It’s unfortunate because we still had quite a bit of work to do yet. We’ll have to go back, sort through the data, pick out the good stuff and go from there.”

Catherine Wallace explained that both the engines the Howard team brought to the test developed problems, which could not be remedied here. The first engine was leaking oil past the valves and the second had a trigger wheel problem. The good news for them is that neither of these were the race spec. engines. The #16 was running what will be both the race engine for both the #16 and #20 entries. Catherine added that the proper engine for their #20 car was simply not ready in time for this test. With free time on their hands the Crawford family, including Andy Wallace, all lent a hand to the Alex Job team. Apparently the #23 Crawford had to undergo some ergonomic changes to the foot box to accommodate a certain long legged German. Max Crawford and his crew (those are Max's legs sticking out of the #23) where there to assist in some associated steering and braking issues.

Pat Long with more on the progress of the Job Crawford: “We’re not panicking yet but we are not a quick as we would like. But we’re here to try a lot of different things to see what does and doesn’t work. What makes its so frustrating is that at the November test here the car was as good as it’s ever been. I think there are a couple of factors, the Pontiacs look like they have stepped up their game and I think the new Hoosier tire construction suits the Riley chassis better. We also have been seriously concentrating of race setup. We’ve been running full tanks and old tires, not just throwing on a set of stickers and a light fuel load just to set a quick time.”

The Ruby Tuesday car ended up twelfth quickest with a 1:44.605. At the test last year, the #23 was fastest with a 43.431, marginally quicker than Angelelli’s best this year.

Former Rolex winner and DP Class champion Terry Borcheller is not used to being at the bottom of the time sheets but that where he sits in the VICI Fabcar Porsche. The particular chassis is the former Brumos #58 that was retired in favor of a Riley chassis. Borcheller explains. “We have a long way to go. But it is improving. This is the first time for these guys working together and on this car. But I have a lot of confidence in Jim Bell’s ability along with VICI Racing to get us headed in the right direction.” Borcheller’s season is far being settled although he is pleased to announce that he will return to Sebring this year in a Jim Bell run GT2 Porsche owned and co-driven by Tom Papis.

Johnny Mowlem back in 22nd position in GT is still optimistic about the progress with the #17 Doncaster Porsche. “We’ve had a fuel pick-up issue so we’ve had to run with a full fuel tank all the time. Also we are running an older ’06 motor which will be changed for a brand new ’07 before the race. Considering those things I’m happy with the car and think I can get those last three seconds out of it.”

With Colin Braun getting most of the track time this morning, JJ Lehto had a chance to catch us up on his first impressions of Daytona, the Speedway and the Prototype. “Well it’s very different from the prototypes that I am used to. It drives more like a GT car than a Le Mans prototype. Still these cars are very fast on the banking. The infield is very tough as there is not very much speed differential through the corners between the prototypes and the GT cars. The traffic bunches up through the slow corners and you have to be very careful and patient to get through. The race will be very tough. You will obviously have to stay out of trouble and try to be very consistent. I’m with a good team and good drivers, so I think we have a good chance.”

JJ was less than complimentary about tires and brakes.

One of the biggest names in Porsche racing for this next year has to be Tafel Racing. With three GT3s for the Rolex Series and two brand new 997 RSRs for the ALMS Jim Tafel certainly has his hands full.

Tafel: “We had to stop and bleed the brakes on the #74 car, but really we are just getting solid laps in on all the cars. We are also real happy to have the Red Bull guys running with us this year (the #73). Michael Gue is running that car for us, and doing a nice job. We are definitely going to have our hands full running three Porsches here in the Rolex series along with our new ALMS program. We just received the new RSRs on Tuesday. Just enough time to kiss them and take a few pictures before we had to leave for this test. We are really excited to get that program underway as soon as we get back. Everyone has been asking me why we didn’t just move up to DP. I want to have the best GT team in the world and to be a factory development team for Porsche is an opportunity of a lifetime. We couldn’t do this if it wasn’t for Tony Dowe (right, with Robin Liddell) and the strategic benefits he brings to the table. I don’t want to ruin what we’ve built here in the Rolex Series. It will be hard work juggling both programs but we are committed to doing just that and doing it right.” Tafel Racing will have both new 997s at the upcoming ALMS winter test at Sebring.

There’s a rogue time from the #28 Porsche in our list of best times, so ignoring that, Dirk Werner (#85 Farnbacher Loles Porsche) was fastest in GT, with a 1:52.016, set on Saturday afternoon – seven-tenths faster than the best (Tafel) time a year ago. That was a whopping eight-tenths quicker than Andy Lally in the fastest TRG Porsche, and of the top ten in GT, eight were Porsches. The interlopers were the new (Crawford-built) #15 Blackforest Mustang (seventh) and the SpeedSource Mazda (eighth).

Quickest overall for the weekend is the #10 SunTrust Riley. Jan Magnussen adds these comments: “I’ve only gotten a few laps in the cars yesterday but Max (Angelelli) just called in over the radio that the car is the best it’s ever been. The sun is shining, the car is fast, so it’s all good right now.” Angelelli’s best was a 1:43.483, on Saturday morning, a whole three-tenths faster than the #99 Riley and almost six-tenths quicker than Ganassi’s #02 Riley.

Jon Fogarty: “We’re quick enough. The car is very drivable and our main goal for the test was to see what setup would work best for the race. We might not be the fastest at this point but we do have a good 24-hour car. For the race we will need to watch the rear tire wear, and be patient through the traffic.”

"We could have put down the fastest lap every day if we wanted to, but that’s not our focus," said team owner Bob Stallings.

Former DP drivers champion Scott Pruett (sixth fastest) was stuck in the middle of pit road during the morning session with a fuel problem. Pruett: “The car is nice to drive; we’ve been quick all weekend. We had an O-ring fail along the fuel line and filled the cockpit with fuel, which is not a good situation for the driver. Otherwise it’s been good. All the drivers are fast and comfortable with the car.”

Fourth quickest was the #59 Brumos Riley (Barbosa’s time?), and Bob Snodgrass has a pair of (former) Porsche men on board in the form of Norbert Singer and Manfred Jantke: Snodgrass is out to make amends for the lack of results in recent seasons.

A late rush on Saturday afternoon, in the final one hour session, came from the #7 SAMAX Riley, with either Kimber-Smith, Enge or Bucknum setting the eighth best time, right in the thick of the densely packed 1:44 group.

Also in that 1:44 bracket was the #39 Cheever Crawford Porsche. Sascha Maassen: "In the three days, we constantly improved our car. It was good – the last session, we did our quickest lap time. We're not the quickest yet, but it's not important at the moment; we hope to be the quickest at the end of the race. With my limited experience with this car, I was happy that they took my input, and I think we improved the car a little bit. I'm very happy with the team and with my teammates, Emmanuel Collard, Christian Fittipaldi and Eddie Cheever. Everything looks good. I think there are 10 to 15 cars that can win this race and we can say now we belong to that group."

We make it that 17 cars beat the 1:45 mark, but perhaps the true number of potential winners is more like 20. More than ever though, Daytona is not going to be about outright pace: it’s going to require the teams to stay on the lead lap, and out of trouble, for lap after lap, hour after hour. Even a two lap delay is going to be almost impossible to make up in three weeks’ time.

"We just don't have the speed this year that we had last year," summed up Alex Job. It was his #23 Ruby Tuesday-backed Crawford that set the track alight 12 months ago. "We've got to work hard on that. Our biggest issue right now is the car is unsettled under braking. The drivers don't have full confidence to really drive the car into the turns. We won't be able to show the kind of speed we showed last year due the performance adjustments that occurred throughout the 2006 season."

And finally: the rogue time we referred to on Friday, from the #02 Ganassi car (a 1:41.419) was in fact set by Juan Pablo Montoya - and he didn't miss out the bus stop. In fact he had an "experimental engine control module" in the Riley Lexus, which allegedly was good for an extra 50 bhp - and that's why the time was disallowed.