Daytona 24

steve remchak · **Posted:** Sat Jan 24, 2009 8:14 pm

is it just me or does this years race not seem like years past? 49 cars seems a little light to me. and i just don't get that exotic feel from the field like in years past.

NASCAR-ification if you will of the series. while i beleive it will benefit the overall season, i also believe they have ruined The 24 Hours of Daytona.

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

I've seen several fields there of 80+ in the past, so yes, this is a small field for the event. The cars were more exotic in the days before Grand-Am, but the races were typically decided by sun-up Sunday. This year, in contrast, there were 3 other cars within 10 seconds of the leader throughout the morning, all the way to the end at 3:30. And I understand the winning Brumos car ran the fastest pole time and completed the most laps ever. Not too bad for a NASCAR-ified race.

Wes Eargle · **Joined:** Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:47 am **Posts:** 3683

steve remchak wrote:

is it just me or does this years race not seem like years past? 49 cars seems a little light to me. and i just don't get that exotic feel from the field like in years past.

NASCAR-ification if you will of the series. while i beleive it will benefit the overall season, i also believe they have ruined The 24 Hours of Daytona.

I'll take the "economy-ification of the series" for $1000 Alex.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:15 pm

I am a big fan of privateer teams being able to win races. At the top level of racing that can run counter to another thing I enjoy and that is manufacture involvement. I view the way that Porsche handles racing as the example of how this should be done. They tend to create cars that from the onset are “customer cars” that can be run by private teams. While Porsche may tend to support a specific team at the beginning, they typically back off that support once the car is fully developed. In general they don’t just dump money and support into a single team at the expense of their customers. Or just run a factory effort with no expectation of any private teams running the cars.

So, I can say that I think it’s a good thing that we have a series that a privateer can win a big race. In the current economic conditions, this is a doubly good scenario as I think the general costs for a Grand-Am team is generally not as expensive as it could be. For example how much money would it take to win Le Mans? You would have to do better than factory backed efforts such as Audi and Peugeot.

With that being said the Rolex 24 is not what it used to be for sure. Prestige has been sacrificed as a result of these compromises. Especially as other prototype series exists that still maintains the level of technical excellence (ALMS and LMS for example) in prototype racing of yesteryear. Maybe it really is the “NASCARification” of prototype racing. It has both good and bad affects for sure.

I did end up watching a good bit of the race. I watched the start and first few hours on FOX and Speed and then recorded the 8 hrs on Speed for Sunday. I fast forwarded through much of the 8 hrs of the Sunday Speed broadcast and was disappointed that I missed the finish. I assume they must have switched back to FOX for the finish? Stupid if you ask me as I am sure I am not the only one to have missed the finish due to the channel switch.

Anyhow, my comments on the actual race is that I felt that if you ignored my comments above about this not being as good as it could be and just looked at it as being a 24hr race between DP cars and GT cars, that it was a good race. The DP cars continue to be the ugliest things on four wheels (not that I wouldn’t kill to drive one). I think the top runners in both classes drove hard and the close finish was good. Of course the close finish with multiple cars on the same lap was probably helped quite a lot by the number of full course cautions that kept bunching up the front runners. I read some rumblings this morning about some NASCAR yellows (invisible debris on track anyone?) going on.

It is good to see a private team with a long standing tradition in US prototype racing win, so Kudos to Brumos as well as Porsche in general. I saw a short interview with Leh Keen who drove for Farnbacher Loles. He was Donnie’s co-drive in the On Lap of America this year. The car he was in finished eights in class. Farnbacher Loles had a number of mechanical issues that kept them out of the top of the GT class. It was also good to see GT cars finish in the top 10 overall.

I hear Montoya was using the work “unfair” about the Porsche powered car beating him. Cry me a river! The new 3.99L engine is based upon the current 911 GT3 RS engine, but it doesn’t have DFI yet. Hopefully GA will not mess with Porsche just because they have made improvements with the engine (the previous Porsche DP engine was 3.79L). My understanding is that Porsche is stopping just short of 4L because once you go past 4L GA mandates using air-restrictors to balance out the engines. Supposedly Porsche developed a DFI version of this new engine, but GA was/is not ready to let them use it. I would guess that as strong as the non-DFI engine was that GA is not going to let them use it just yet.

It will be interesting to see what $2 part killed all of the Ford cars.

I most likely will be at the Bosch 250 at VIR in a few months to watch the DP cars race.

steve remchak · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:24 pm

i might have enjoyed the race more if 95% fo the coverage had not been skewered toward 40% of the field. (DP class) i realize those are the big ticket cars, but as Richard suggested the GTs are more likely to be Mom & Pop teams. well heeled Mom & Pops but still a more compelling story IMO.

Patrice Bousquet · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:50 pm

Richard Casto wrote:

I did end up watching a good bit of the race. I watched the start and first few hours on FOX and Speed and then recorded the 8 hrs on Speed for Sunday. I fast forwarded through much of the 8 hrs of the Sunday Speed broadcast and was disappointed that I missed the finish. I assume they must have switched back to FOX for the finish? Stupid if you ask me as I am sure I am not the only one to have missed the finish due to the channel switch.

Of course the close finish with multiple cars on the same lap was probably helped quite a lot by the number of full course cautions that kept bunching up the front runners. I read some rumblings this morning about some NASCAR yellows (invisible debris on track anyone?) going on.

Everything was on Speed, but on the schedule it show: Rolex continue... From 3pm to 4pm. I'm still wondering also what the last caution was for... but heck, it seem to help Brumos pass Montoya. Montoya was not happy about the speed of his car complaining the Porsche where too fast??? they just setup their car for the infield, that's why the car was slow on the banking....don't complaint about Brumos because they set their for high speed.... that's explain why they where slower in the infield. Montoya just went down in my book....

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 2:30 pm

For Sunday, DirecTV had them starting at 7 AM and them running for maybe 8 hrs. If it was Speed who had them through the end, then I am assuming the guide data DirecTV was bad. I ended up missing maybe the last 30 minutes of the race and any post race interviews.

At least what I watched was in HD!

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 2:44 pm

Patrice Bousquet wrote:

don't complaint about Brumos because they set their for high speed.... that's explain why they where slower in the infield.

It interesting as I just finished Vic Elfords book a few weeks ago and am now reading Peter Morgan's 917 book. Both talk about the philosophy Porsche used for the early 917 when endurance racing at events like Le Mans. Ferdinand Piëch who ran racing at Porsche during the 917 era was fanatical about low drag cars. The idea being that low drag = high speed = low laptime. Now his drivers may not have agreed because at that time to achieve low drag meant very low downforce, so as the cars went faster and faster (and the 917 was reaching 230+ MPH) it would wander all over the track. They eventually solved this problem with the short tail and later long tail cars, but the first 917 had major pucker factor at speed.

Anyhow, Vic Elford would say that the last thing you want to do during an endurance race is to actually “race” your opponents. If he was in a low downforce, low drag early longtail 917, he would happy follow them through the slow sections and then just motor on past on the straights with a higher top end. Hopefully by the next curve, he would be far enough ahead that he would not be overtaken under braking by the car he just passed.

clinehall · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 3:19 pm

steve remchak wrote:

i might have enjoyed the race more if 95% fo the coverage had not been skewered toward 40% of the field. (DP class) i realize those are the big ticket cars, but as Richard suggested the GTs are more likely to be Mom & Pop teams. well heeled Mom & Pops but still a more compelling story IMO.

I agree, I think that makes more compelling tv and would get an/or keep more viewers. I imagine the network bean counters want more focus on were they think more ad revenue might come from.

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 4:07 pm

clinehall wrote:

steve remchak wrote:

i might have enjoyed the race more if 95% fo the coverage had not been skewered toward 40% of the field. (DP class) i realize those are the big ticket cars, but as Richard suggested the GTs are more likely to be Mom & Pop teams. well heeled Mom & Pops but still a more compelling story IMO.

I agree, I think that makes more compelling tv and would get an/or keep more viewers. I imagine the network bean counters want more focus on were they think more ad revenue might come from.

agreed. I dvr'd the race and found myself FF through most of the race. For every 30 minutes of DP time, there was a less equal 2 minutes of GT coverage. They didn't even show the winning GT car coming over the finish line, had to keep the cameras on the DP cars on their cool down lap. BS....

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 4:57 pm

That's just GrandAm/NASCAR coming out. They think all the people watching on TV *could* care about is Jimmie Johnson, Danica Patrick, JPM, etc. Until they figure out that the average road race fan is so much more interested in watching good RACING and less interested in watching their favorite, they will continue to miss the mark.

You see it in the press releases, too. As a Koni Challenge driver I somehow automatically get EVERY DAMNED GA press release. GT is buried in those, and they constantly get names wrong and stuff like that (Leo Keen???). It's pretty sad, really.

--Donnie

Bernie Baake · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:31 pm

I too was disappointed with the coverage. I really would have like to watch more of the GT's. Tom Long drove in the #97 corvette and I believe that I saw that car twice in two days. I think the vast majority of the viewing public is more interested in the stars of the sport. I guess if you really want to see something your interested in you have to go there.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:00 pm

I have to say that I was generally happy with the coverage overall. However, I was about 75% interested in the DP race and 25% in the GT so that may explain it. But I guess with the number of hours of TV they had to work with, they probably could have spent more time on the GT cars as well as spend time highlighting individual teams and drivers that were not "stars".

On a semi-related note, I am going to try to goto the Petit Le Mans race this year. At that race I will be just as interested in how the GT cars do as the prototypes. Mostly because I think the GT cars will have the more interesting battles (Porsche vs. Ferrari).

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

Since the demise of IMSA, the top classes became more accessible to the "merely rich" and "well sponsored", as opposed to manufacturer-sponsored teams as in ALMS. I think there's room in the racing world for both approaches.

Anyway, Richard mentioned Brumos, and for a team that isn't ever going to field a Mustang, they're my favorite. The late principal of the organization, Bob Snodgrass was very friendly with the fans, especially when they were inspecting his displays of former class winning cars. One year he offered to help my buddy get Danny Sullivan's signature on an old race poster featuring Brumos's 1994 entry. Just two years ago, in the garages the afternoon before the race, Bob took a moment to talk to us, in very hushed tones, about his strategy for the race. Though it sounded like he was entrusting us with a deep insight into weight rules and lobbying the rules committee, after he left I realized it netted out to "slow down the other cars or speed up mine". In his "Legends of Daytona" induction the next day, he quipped "There's a lot of money in racing. I should know. I put it there." He died in his sleep the week before the spring VIR race that year.

Keith Vail · **Posted:** Thu Jan 29, 2009 9:52 am

It now appears that the #58 car is losing all its points and being fined for being 12 lbs underweight at the end of the race. Due to the fact that it was basically out of oil, water, and fuel. I did not hear any talk of taking away the victory though. :evil:

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