Postcard from Daytona

I was on Facebook a couple of weeks ago and feeling very depressed after seeing posts from Olly Gavin and Johnny O’Connell about their test sessions at Daytona. I idly thought about taking a short trip over for the race and after finding out that British Airways had a sale on and a return flight to Miami from Heathrow cost just £369 including all the taxes, the plan became reality. The short actually became a one week trip, thanks to my understanding boss Steve allowing me the time off at short notice and my fiancée Jan who never needs an excuse for another holiday.

So flights booked, car hire done sadly not a ZHZ Hertz Corvette but a Nissan Versa, a truly hateful excuse for a car but hey it was cheap and did the job of transporting us to and from Daytona Beach.

My only previous attendance of the Rolex 24 Hours was in 2002 and I was shocked how few people attended the race that year, there appeared to be about 1,000 people attending the whole race weekend, no one seemed to be camping on the infield and the car parks were virtually empty the whole weekend. This year the infield camp grounds started to fill up from the Thursday onwards with a mixture of massive RVs and tented communities, by race day the infield camping areas were all completely full and the local papers estimate of numbers ran to 50,000 people.

I attended both Thursday and Friday practice and qualifying sessions and the pits were heaving with people on both days and by Saturday my infield parking had become outside parking due to the sheer volume of cars. The beautiful weather probably helped swell the race day attendance but all of the infield campers had obviously planned their attendance regardless of the weather.

The diverse list of drivers racing made the event more interesting for me personally than the cars which is not normally the reason I attend a race meeting, for me it is usually all about the cars. The only cars I was particularly interesting in seeing (hearing) was the Pratt & Miller Camaros and they didn’t disappoint, not as glorious a sound as the Corvette but close enough. This year the drivers competing came from NASCAR, Endurance racing, Indy Car, ex-Formula 1 and of course talented amateurs such as the Hollywood actor Patrick Dempsey who finished on the GT Class podium at the end of a personal marathon involving a round trip to Utah between Thursday night and Saturday morning. He wasn’t the only driver to go AWOL on the Friday, Johnny O’Connell disappeared back to Georgia to see his son graduate.

 
For me the story of the weekend had to be the #67 TRG Porsche which went from hero to zero to hero in the space of 3 days. On Thursday the car took the GT Class pole only for it to be disqualified and placed last on the grid for a compliance issue with the rear wing height. The car then made steady progress during the first few hours of the race and by hour seven it was up to 3rd in GT when the clutch decided to pack up.

At this point the team had two choices, pit the car, lose about 20 laps changing the clutch or they could continue racing without the clutch. They chose option two which meant that every one of the five drivers had to make sure that they didn’t stall the car anywhere on track, so no spins or contact with other cars and every gear change had to be massaged at just the right revs, pit stops meant finding neutral on the way in and then finding first as they were pushed out of the pit box. To achieve all this and to take the GT Class win was a truly heroic performance.

In conclusion Grand-Am should be congratulated for putting on a first class event, the two class racing made it simple and yet interesting for the fans to watch as both classes produced competitive finishes and not for the first time. I accept that in part this was due to the large number of full course cautions but the safety car managed to pickup the leader on each occasion unlike some other series I could mention. One thing that I think Grand-Am should adopt is the ALMS leader light system as although at Daytona they used the NASCAR tree to display the top 20 leaders it would be easier for all to see the class leaders if the on car lights were used.

The other issue that needs to be addressed is the poor standard of driving, the number of avoidable collisions was very high and the huge repair bills for some of the smaller teams will become unsustainable which will in the end in my opinion lead to smaller fields and therefore attract smaller crowds to watch the racing…….and by the way the poor standards of driving came in the main from the DP drivers and one in particular are certain ex F1 now NASCAR Columbian.

One owner currently holds the trophies for the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500, the Brickyard 400 and now the Rolex 24 at Daytona – Chip Ganassi.

Nigel Dobbie

Look in later for a chance to win a signed copy of Nigel's very excellent book Corvette Racing - The GT1 Years