No. 64’s Adventures At Daytona
Including The Hard Charger Award

The #64 TRG Porsche at Daytona – raced by Johannes van Overbeek, Tim Sugden, Jim Pace, Jim Lowe and RJ Valentine – could be termed the J Lowe racing entry, or the “with the Lizards” entry, at the Rolex 24, because Johannes van Overbeek wasn’t the only Lizard on the team: Thomas Blam and other crew members were supporting the effort. So was Steve Bunkhall (who will be very busy with Virgo and CR Scuderia this year), who engineered the car, having been brought in at the suggestion of Tim Sugden.

You could say the same about any number of the GT entries – but this one really could have won it.. or secured a podium.. or it could have given up the ghost with the effort of trying to snatch a podium.

“We had an overheating issue, as several other cars did,” explains Steve Bunkhall, “but having lost several laps repairing the car after RJ Valentine was hit by a Ferrari, we were still going for a podium – it was all or nothing, but unfortunately we still came up a lap short.”

But 31st on the GT grid to fourth in class did at least mean that the #64 entry took the Hard Charger Award, for the most places gained relative to grid position. But 31st wasn’t, of course, a reflection of this entry’s true form – more the fact that it had problems in first qualifying on Thursday.

“Johannes had gearbox problems,” says Steve Bunkhall. “We’d only completed 11 laps on Thursday morning before the drivers couldn’t select any gears. The crew pulled it apart, fixed it, and Johannes went straight into qualifying – but after three laps, the ‘box played up again, so we weren’t in the top 30.

“It was all sorted out in time for Friday, and Johannes set a 1:51.1, which would have been good enough for fourth on the grid, but because the top 30 is set from the first qualifying session.”

But that set up the perfect chance to take the Hard Charger Award.

“RJ Valentine was taken out by the surviving Ferrari (Kevin Buckler has already voiced his opinion about one of the drivers in the 430),” continues Steve Bunkhall, “and I’m sure that without that issue, we’d have been right there with the Mazda. Whether we would have won it is another matter, of course.

“Tim (Sugden) was in the car when it started raining for the first time, Johannes having got us up to fourth – and Tim drove an absolutely stunning stint on slicks. He kept us on the lead lap, when everyone else was on wets, and we were just about to take advantage, when they pitted as it dried, when Tim picked up a puncture, and had to pit anyway. It was a piece of debris through a tyre, as simple as that.

“The pros. – Tim, Johannes and Jim Pace – drove the majority of the race, and they all did a great job. A lot of cars were suffering with overheating, although whether it really was the sand mixed with water, clogging up the radiators, or something else, I couldn’t be sure.

“I would say Pirelli did an excellent job with the GT tyres: we didn’t see any rubber pick-up at all, and most GT drivers were double-stinting the tyres in the dry. Once we’d dropped behind after the contact (which bent the exhaust, broke the rear wing and took off the rear panel – about six laps to fix, above), the pros. really took over and Jim Pace and Johannes triple stinted in the night.”

Steve Bunkhall summed it up as a “really enjoyable event”, and clearly with a competitive car, quick drivers, and then ground to make up, it was anything but dull for the #64 TRG team.

“Roger Reis from the Lizards was the crew chief, and everyone, from Lizards and TRG, pulled together really well – and we hard a shot at winning, at least until the contact. We had a great group on the 64 car.”

TRG Porsches of course finished second, third and fourth, leaving the SpeedSource Mazda (just behind on the road, below) to take a slightly unexpected, but in the end fairly dominant, GT win – from the front of the grid. No doubt Porsche will be more determined than ever to take the Rolex 24 win in 2009.