Daytona
Grand-Am, HSR, USA-GT
Grand-Am
Grand-Am's Daytona Finale always brings a higher
turn-out than other races because it is a convenient pre-test for the
Rolex 24 under real race conditions. The 2004 Rolex will feature a
new category of cars called Super Grand Sport (SGS). This is not
an entirely new class but a modification of Grand-Am Cup's premier GS1
class which has been promoted into the Rolex Series. Many
competitors brought SGS prepared cars and ran them in the GT
category. While certainly outclassed by true GT cars, this is the
first event since the formal announcement of next season's rules and
therefore the first chance to test the cars under race conditions.
About half of the SGS field competed in the GS1 race the night before,
including the Supercup that won the race overall.
Autometrics Motorsports will run our Supercup in
the Rolex Series next year, though we have not yet completely decided
whether we will run in the SGS or GT category. We went to the
Finale with an SGS prepped car with a small 17 gallon fuel cell as required
for GT. Bransen Patch, who ran last year's Finale with us in the
RSR and this year's 6-hours at Watkins Glen, joined Cory Friedman in our
Supercup's professional debut. Cory qualified the car in the
middle of the SGS field where we ran until the first full-course
yellow. With such a small fuel tank in the GT cars, pit strategy
and fuel stops are critical to finishing up front. Our strategy
proved very strong through the first wave of stops, and Cory had the car
as high as 11th overall and 4th in class, where we stood at the half-way
mark of the 250 mile race. The 3 cars ahead of us at this point in
the race were the Championship winning Ferrari 360 GT, the Flying Lizard
(Rennwerks) GT3 RS, and Daytona winning GT3 RS from the Racer's
Group. All are legitimate GT cars, so we were ahead of all of our
SGS competition.
We were forced to make our second fuel stop under
green flag conditions, and this proved to be a huge disadvantage as our
competition was able to stop under a full-course yellow only 2 laps
after our stop. Even at a track as long as Daytona, a stop under
green will put you down nearly 2 laps, where a well-timed stop under
yellow will lose you track position, but no laps. This issue propagated
again at the end of the race, when we were again forced to make a
splash-and-go under green with only 2 laps remaining. As a result,
we were 3 laps behind our SGS competitors and finished 10th in class and
23rd overall. We are disappointed in the end result of the race,
but this race was intended to be more of a test for the Rolex than a
competition, but we were still expecting better considering our standing
half-way through the race.
This was Cory's third race of the season, and the
finish placed him 7th overall in GT Driver Standings. Last year,
he finished 17th in points, and in 2001 he was 22nd. We hope that
next season he will continue his climb in the standings.
HSR
Autometrics
Motorsports also had a strong showing in the HSR event. Aaron
Hudson, from Building Cleaning Solutions who sponsored our Supercup for
the Rolex race, and John Grand drove Aaron's 911 to a 6th place finish
in their enduro and 3rd in the sprint. In the Group 9 sprint race,
Doug Nargiz finished 4th in class, and Charles O'Brien and Dave Montrois
both finished 2nd in their respective classes.
USA-GT
The
last USA-GT event at Atlanta was an exciting experience for Driver and
Spectator alike, as Cory Friedman and Leh Keen had one of the closest
races imaginable. Cory's last lap run allowed him to catch Leh and
beat him by only 0.062 seconds.
This race
was entirely different. Because Cory was focused on the Rolex
race, he did not enter the USA-GT competition leaving Keen well ahead of
the rest of the field. After topping the timesheets all weekend,
Leh had managed a 24 second lead over the 2nd place car after only 4
laps. At that point, he was black-flagged for having the windows
installed (they had been installed all weekend) and was not able to
finish the race. Truly disappointing considering how dominant he
was all weekend. |
