Rolex
24 Hours at Daytona
Grand
Am Cup 200 at Daytona
February
4-6, 2005
Grand
am Cup 200
We
left the early January Daytona Test Day’s feeling cautiously
optimistic about our chances at the opening round of the Grand-Am CUP
season having finished the weekend turning laps that consistently put us
in the top 10 overall. Several
issues remained to be addressed but solid plans were laid down to take
care of each of them prior to the race weekend in early February. Near the top of the list was diagnosing the cause of our
horrendous fuel economy in the #45 Autometrics Motorsports 996. This was diagnosed as likely being caused by a bad O2 Sensor
causing the car to run overly rich. Based on this, we headed to the Daytona 200 on an optimistic note
as we might have just cured our poor fuel economy and picked up some
horsepower with one simple part change.
Unfortunately,
it seemed the cure was not to be found so easily. The team had previously decided to let Cory take the car out
first and recommend any adjustments that might be needed to the car’s
set-up and then put Brian in the car to get some laps. Brian still hasn’t turned that many laps in the car and as he
gets more accustomed to the 996 should pick up some more speed, so the
initial plan for the weekend is for Cory to open each session and for
Brian to finish out each session. With
that plan set, Cory heads out in the first session expecting a much,
much better car. Unfortunately,
we're slower than we were in early January and getting killed on the
banking by everything short of the ST cars. This is an unfortunate development, but issues like this are just
a part of racing that every team deals with at one time or another.
Troubleshooting
begins in earnest, but with the shortened practice schedule, we are
unable to resolve the problem prior to Qualifying for the race on
Thursday afternoon. As
previously decided Cory takes the car out, knowing its going to be tough
to put down a good time and manages to turn a 2:09.7 which is good
enough for 29th on the grid. While definitely not what we were expecting, we knew something
wasn’t quite right with the car and that’s where our focus remained. With qualifying behind us, the decision to replace the O2's once
again based on erratic voltage readings which lead us to believe the
O2’s in the car were also not functioning as they should be. With that change made, Cory heads out for practice #3 the morning before the race and turns a 2:06.2 on
a full fuel load once he gets a clean lap. Looks like the O2's we put in there prior to this event weren't
in as good a shape as we thought. While
we were glad to have found the problem, it really hurt us as we should
have started out in the mid 6's and with a little tuning during the
weekend gotten better from there. Not
fought to get there by the final practice session. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, we only got there in the
last session so further improvement was not to be had. This development did leave us feeling better about the upcoming
the race. As a note, the
2:06.3 we turned in practice #3 would have put us 11th on the
starting grid rather than 29th had we been able to duplicate
that lap in the Qualifying session the day prior.
Race
start came and as expected, Cory started moving toward the front. When a yellow came out on lap 15, we decided to pit for fuel
since we knew we'd have to stop twice in the race due to the very low
fuel capacity allowed for the 3.4L Porsches without a lot of laps under
yellow to help us conserve fuel. This
stop put Cory well back in the pack though once back under green he
immediately starts picking off the cars in front of him. This stop was a calculated risk on our part that was not taken by
many others in the race. Since
a majority of the field, and almost all of the frontrunners, stayed out,
we should be able to create an advantage if the race turns out to
require 2 stops for fuel by most of the field if they are forced to make
stops under green farther into the race.
Cory
keeps moving forward and after the first round of pit stops we're
sitting in 3rd place. Unfortunately,
based on how many laps most of the frontrunners were able to complete
prior to their first stop, it looks like most of them will be able to
complete the race on only a single pit stop. This puts us at something of a disadvantage, as we will
definitely need another stop to complete the race. Our best hope at this point is a full course yellow, which would
allow us to pit for fuel and the required driver change without losing
any meaningful time to the field.
We
hold out as long as we can for an incident to bring out a full course
yellow, which unfortunately never comes. So when the car finally stumbles due to low fuel, we come in
under green and Brian gets in. Brian
leaves the pits in 16th place as he slipped out directly in
front of 3 GS cars that immediately get around him leaving us in 19th place. Brian slowly starts
moving forward getting as high as 15th place while in the
midst of a pretty good battle with the #81 Porsche 997. Unfortunately, the 997 gets a run on Brian and is able to use a
slower car to create the advantage necessary to get past Brian heading
into the Bus stop. In
Brian’s words “The 997 was drafting me around Nascar 2 and we're
coming up on another GS class Porsche though we're both going quite a
bit faster. I'm planning to
draft in behind him and slide out and around, unfortunately, the 997
slides out about 20 yards before I had planned to and puts his nose
right on my rear quarter panel. He
basically performed a perfectly executed pick and I had to actually hit
the brakes on the banking to keep from rear ending the Porsche we came
up on as there was no room to go to the inside.” Brian was able to stay on the tail of the 997 for a couple of
laps pressuring him in the infield braking zones but lost about a second
when the 997 got a cleaner run through several lapped ST cars on the
entrance to the Bus stop. With
about a 10 car length lead gained on that single corner and only a few
laps remaining, it proved more than could be made up which left us in 16th for the race after starting in 29th.
While
we would have preferred a top 10 finish, we leave our first Grand-Am CUP
race optimistic about our chances this season. Given the quality of drivers in the series this year and the
concessions made to the BMW M3 and the new 2005 Mustang in the off
season (some of which have already been taken away by the series due to
their dominating performance at the opening race of the season), we feel
that with a few adjustments to the #45 996,we’ll be more than
competitive when the series makes its first stop at a traditional road
course late in April.
We
plan to skip the
Dominican Republic
race in March due to logistic issues surrounding team travel and the
Rolex races at
Homestead
the prior weekend, which means our next appearance will be round 3 of
the 2005 season at California Speedway in
Fontana
, Ca.
On
a final note, the team would like to extend a special thanks to everyone
at Autometrics Motorsports who performed flawlessly all weekend and
built a terrific racecar under tight time constraints. We would also like to welcome and extend our thanks to a new
partner, Park Place Porsche in
Dallas
,
TX
.
Park Place
is one of the leading Porsche dealers in the
U.S.
and a leading supporter of the Porsche Club of
America
in the Maverick Region. We
look forward to forging a long-term relationship with them going
forward. Final thanks goes
out to Kevin, Jon, Paul, Jim, Gordon, Adam, and Haley for their
fantastic job in the pits during the race.
Rolex
24 Hours at Daytona
The 2005 Daytona 24 was distinctly
different than past years in that it consolidated all cars into only two
classes, Daytona Prototype (DP) and GT. The field grew again this
year with 62 cars taking the green, but the strength of the competitors
was far more significant. It seems the DP class has finally hit
its stride in its 3rd season. A record 29 Prototypes contested
this year's race, and the strong teams from the last two years improved
their efforts. Last season's GT and SGS cars have all evolved into
the new GT category. Consequently, the strong competitors from
each class were now going head-to-head against not only each other, but
other teams who put up a huge effort just for the Rolex.
We felt we had potential for a strong
finish this year. Our driver line-up was as good as we've had, and
our car was faster than in past years. We were fifth fastest in
Testing, but being an endurance event, we focused more on longevity than
sheer speed. The car had the potential to run top 5 or 6 in class,
but the qualifying sessions both ended early and Leh Keen was not able
to put together the lap he was capable of. Starting position is
not terribly important in such a race, and at the start, Leh quickly
took back some positions.
We started 37th overall and 12th in
class, but Keen ran 8th in class by the fourth lap. Our first stop
came with the first yellow just over a half-hour into the race. We
filled the fuel and left Leh out until he exhausted the tank.
Unlike last year's first-hour fiasco, Keen's first stint was mostly
uneventful. A slight graze by a DP did not warrant any
repair. Cory jumped in the car at about the 1:45 mark with new
tires and a full fuel load. At this point, teams started to
develop different fuel windows, so class positions would change
rapidly. Cory was circulating around our qualifying position when
we made an early stop under yellow to fix a radio problem. We lost
our first lap to the class leader around the 2-hour mark. Another
yellow gave us a chance to re-fill Cory again, and he finished his long
stint 10th in class, well over the 4:30 hour mark.
Al
Bacon was 3rd in the car. His stint had only one short yellow very
early on. Slightly more than 1/4th of the way through the race,
Steve Johnson, our final driver, took his first stint as daylight
faded. This started a trend where we would run out of gas and
complete a fuel stop just in time for the track to go yellow.
Steve began 9th in class, and with the help of a wave-by moved up to 8th
in class and 26th overall. Nearly 9 hours into the race and we
were 4 laps down from the GT leader when we gave the car back to
Leh. Leh was running incredibly strong under the lights and there
was not a GT car on the track turning faster laps. We kept him in
the car for two full tanks of fuel. The only yellows coming
immediately after stops. This frustrating trend would not end and
certainly cost us more than a few laps. Daytona is such that any
stop under green will cost you a full lap, where a stop under yellow
will only result in a loss of track position. In Leh's second stop
under green, we put Cory in the car. Friedman re-entered the
circuit just in time to see another full-course yellow. Cory
maintained Leh's excellent pace, and between the two, we were quickly
picking up laps and positions. Towards the end of the
double-stint, we were 4th in class and 20th overall, only a single lap
down from the 3rd place car. Shortly before the scheduled end of
Cory's run, he called in a vibration in the right front - possibly a
wheel bearing. A wheel bearing would have ruined our chances of a
good finish, so we changed tires to make sure that was the issue.
The bearing turned out to be fine, but the problem was potentially far
more dangerous. The tire had de-laminated exposing a very large
section of the tire's carcass. It was fortunate that Cory
identified a problem early enough to avoid any damage. The set-up
we used on the car allowed us to turn competitive times for over 2 hours
on a set of tires, but over 60 laps of Cory's abuse was all the Hoosiers
could handle.
Al Bacon returned to
the driver's seat at about 1:30 am, well over halfway through the
race. After a full stint under green, Steve went in for his second
run. By the end of the second rotation of all drivers, we maintained
20th overall but had fallen to 7th in GT. Keen took driving duties
just past the 16-hour mark, scheduled for another double-stint. At
this point in the race, making up ground is usually very difficult, as
cars are separated by minutes rather than seconds. Leh repeated
his last performance, quickly making up ground on the cars in front of
us. A caution late in Leh's second tank of fuel allowed us to pick
up a few positions. Presumably, other cars used this opportunity
to change brake pads, which we had not done yet. Cory's third
stint began at about 18:45, and at daybreak, he was turning our fastest
times of the race. After Cory's first fuel load, he was sitting
17th overall and 5th in class. We dropped to fifth by doing a
brake pad change along with the driver change. Amazingly, the 3rd
through 6th place cars in GT were only 2 laps apart. The top 2
cars had distanced themselves from the field a bit. We finally
found a bit of good fortune when Friedman switched the fuel to reserve
just in time for a full-course yellow. Upon re-entering for the
second half of his stint, Cory got a wave-by to help out even
more. Our fastest lap of the race, 1:58.8, came at 8:30 on Sunday
morning on lap 548 with well over an hour on the tires.
Cory
climbed out of the car with only 3 hours left in the twice around the
clock event. At this point, the crew is starting to see the goal,
but the typical Grand Am race is 3 hours. There was still
significant possibility for both advancement and disaster. The
leader board at the Speedway shows only the top 15 overall positions,
and at this point in the race, our goal was to be on that scoreboard.
Sitting 18th overall and 6th in GT, this was a possibility. Al did
a quick stint, then we put Leh back in the car to see if there was any
chance at catching the Racer's Group lead #65 car, who sat in the top
5. Leh ran hard and fast, but the gap was just too big to make
up. TRG's #66 DP car was on course and only a few laps down from
us, but Keen was fast enough to stop him from making up ground.
Just before the final hour, we determined that we didn't have a
reasonable chance of overtaking 5th, so Steve Johnson, the car owner,
got in to take the checkered flag. A crazy fire in the #67 TRG DP
caused a yellow that most cars, including us, took advantage of to get a
splash of fuel to run to the finish. This fire allowed us to pick
up an overall position and finally put #14 on the overall leader board
for all to see. We held onto that spot for an uneventful final 20
minutes of the race. Johnson brought it home 15th overall and 6th
in class in his first Rolex 24 hour.
While
our race ended anticlimactically, the battle for the last podium spot in
GT was a fierce battle in the last hour of the race. The #73
Baldwin-Tafel entry with an all-star driver lineup of Robin Liddell,
Craig Stanton and Andrew Davis along with Baldwin and Tafel was leading
the #61 TRG East car by only about 2 seconds when the track went Green
for the final time. Both cars had stopped for fuel and should have
been good until the checkers. With Liddell at the wheel, the #73
car was using the qualifying map to ensure they could maintain their
lead. Robin was able to put time on the #61 car, but apparently
continued to use the high fuel consumption map. This proved
disastrous, as on the final lap, the car ran out of fuel on the banking
and coasted across the finish line in pit lane, relinquishing the final
podium spot to TRG East. Certainly an exciting testament to the
competitive field in the GT category. GT honors went to the #71
Farnbacher car, who was always the favorite. At the conclusion, we
were only 10 laps behind the German team, who was 10th overall.
This was a difference of only 20 minutes at the end of 24 hours.
We ultimately missed the podium by 5 laps.
This
is without question our strongest effort for this race so far, and the
result reflects that. Our drivers did an excellent job of avoiding
the perils associated with non-stop competition for a full day.
The worst damage our car sustained occurred when the car we shared a pit
with tail-ended our car when he over-ran his pit sign. Luckily,
our exhaust exited from the center, so only the bumper cover was
cracked. The drivers deserve a great deal of credit, but you can
never overestimate the value of a good crew in such a race. For
this event, we assembled a great team of experienced people. Each
person had a back-up so they could get rest, and everyone did their duty
with great efficiency. We did not have a single problem in the
pits, as we were always prepared and ready. While a race like this
is never perfect, we feel that everyone did their part, and we finished
where we deserved to finish. We are very happy with how well we
did, and we appreciate all the support and congratulations we've
received in the past few weeks.
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