DP FIELD, NOT NECESSARILY PICKIN’

DAYTONA BEACH – Short and to the point (yes, hard to believe, isn’t it?), below are ruminations on the 2010 Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The garage consensus says that despite the decreased field size, up is the overall quality of driving teams and – every bit as important – the quality of crew members and behind-the-scenes personnel.

No doubt readers have already heard quotes along the lines of “it’s going to be a 24-hour sprint race.”

In the 25 Rolex 24 races occurring over Daytona International Speedway’s 3.56-mile race course, the top-4 finishing cars in the 2009 race completed 735 laps (2,616.6-miles) – ranking fourth overall in completed laps and distance for the race.

The above was accomplished despite the 2009 race also recording 25 yellow flags lasting 117 laps – in both categories the most of any race occurring since the 3.56-mile track came into use.

Given a correct garage consensus and just an average number of yellow flags/laps, it’s probable a new race record for distance will be established by 3:30 p.m. EST Sunday.

THE COMPETITORS

(By 2010 qualifying order)

1. No. 10 SunTrust Ford-Dallara; Max Angelelli, Ricky Taylor, Wayne Taylor, Pedro Lamy. Quietly competent, this team has simply done its thing without getting out of shape. Fourth in 2009, it’ll be hard to beat this team this year.

2. No. 60 Crown Royal Ford-Riley; Ozz Negri, John Pew, Burt Frisselle, Mark Wilkins. Nearly always fastest at DIS, the garage consensus has this team “due” for 2010. On the other hand, this scribe hears Cream’s “Born Under a Bad Sign” when Michael Shank Racing and Rolex 24 are mentioned in the same breath – except when 2006 also appears in the same sentence.

3. No. 6 Michael Shank Racing Ford-Riley; Michael Valiante, Mark Patterson, AJ Allmendinger, Brian Frisselle. This car has commandingly led the previous two Rolex 24s. It’s likely to do so, again. Each member of MSR’s two teams are devoted to their boss, drivers and each other, but of the two MSR cars it’s the No. 6 that’ll most likely this year find DIS’ Victory Lane.

4. No. 02 Target Chip Ganassi Racing BMW-Riley; Scott Dixon, Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti, Jamie McMurray Three of the team’s four drivers wear Rolex 24 victory timepieces. In 2005 McMurray teamed with Stefan Johansson and Cort Wagner to finish the highest (4^th) of any 2005 CGR Rolex 24 entry - it was also dominating the race until McMurray busted some key body components. Excepting practice for this race, McMurray’s had no further time in a DP and it’ll probably show.

5. No. 01 TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing w/ Felix (where the heck is José) Sabates?); Scott Pruett, Memo Rojas, Justin Wilson, Max Papis. Marino Franchitti sought release from his CGR Rolex 24 contract after Duncan Dayton came calling - along with a 12-hour, Sunday, Jan. 31 test-availability proviso. Five days later Marino walked when CGR signed Mad Max Papis, who won the 2002 race in a Kevin Doran Judd-Dallara. If Max has slid comfortably into the team – which he should; his knowing the CGR “model” – Max, Pruett and Rojas will each score another Rolex. Wilson assuredly is not this team’s weak link – it’s the team’s familiarity with BMW power.

6. No. 55 Crown Royal/NPN Racing BMW-Riley; Christophe Bouchut, Scott Tucker, Emmanuel Collard, Sascha Massen, Sabastien Bourdais. Tucker, also entered in the No. 95 (14^th;Tucker, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Lucas Luhr, Richard Westbrook), appears ready to ascertain which of the two cars will do best and only then climb in one and only one car, because he can’t be scored in both. Loaded with talent and not sparing any expense, for better or worse the two-car Level 5 Motorsports team has single-handedly raised the price of playing DP poker. Will it be enough?

7. No. 59 Brumos Racing/Kendall Porsche-Riley; Darren Law, David Donohue, Hurley Haywood, Butch Leitzinger, Raphael Matos. Who knows when or even if Haywood will get in the car, which got a new 25-hour Porsche flat-six engine Thursday evening. Should the talent-laden team be lucky enough to win consecutive Rolex 24s, Leitzinger – ex of the ALMS Dyson team – will certainly bolster his chances for a season-long 2010 ride.

8. No. 9 Action Express Racing Porsche-Cayenne Riley; Joao Barbosa; Terry Borcheller, Mike Rockenfeller. Came in using precisely the same setup as its “technical partner” (immediately above) but having an engine with a higher center of gravity and about 100 lb. more weight. The resulting balance tweak was reportedly accomplished with relocating ballast. Barbosa and Borcheller’s initial enthusiasm with the 8-cylinder engine has reportedly hit a speed bump.

9. No. 75 Krohn Racing Ford-Lola-For-At-Least-The-Time-Being; Ricardo Zonta, Tracy Krohn, Nic Jonsson, Colin Braun. Proto-Auto head Jeff Hazel said this team would’ve won the 2009 Rolex 24 had the Ford not expired. He hasn’t changed his mind this year and the team is about the only one looking forward to whatever rain may fall.

10. No. 90 Menard’s Porsche-Cayenne Coyote; Buddy Rice, Antonio Garcia, Paul Menard, Darren Manning. Menard won sports car races long before heading to NASCAR’s Sprint Cup. Indeed, so too have the other guys. Um, won sports car races, that is. The Coyote’s built like a brick house and ready for abuse but is losing 3/10 per lap due to a heavier weight which owner Troy Flis spent $20k to rid all for naught. The math says this car wins only if the others do not (think about it).

11. No. 77 MacDonald’s Ford-Dallara; Memo Gidley, Brad Jaeger, Fabrizio Gollin, Derek Johnston. Johnston’s the only one who hasn’t been there nor done that and he’s been working hard to get a handle on endurance racing. Owner Kevin Doran has solely focused on what the race would take; not being fastest on the grid. The team’s 11^th-place start is misleading.

12. No. 7 Starworks BMW-Riley; Ian James, Bill Lester, Mike Forest, Dion Von Moltke (BTW: pronounced MOLT-kah). Should Peter Baron’s team make as few mistakes as it did a few years ago it’ll again be podium material.

13. No. 2 Beyer Racing Chevrolet-Crawford; Jared Beyer, Romeo Kapudija, Dane Cameron, Jan Diek Leuders, Cort Wagner. A lot of talent but way too many names on a team formed very late and only likely to provide seat time – if not much of it.

14. No. 95 Crown Royal/NPN Racing BMW-Riley; Scott Tucker, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Lucas Luhr, Richard Westbrook. See No. 6, above.

15. No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Chevrolet-Riley; Alex Gurney, Jon Fogarty, Jimmy Vasser, Jimmie Johnson. The only team consistent from last year to this has had the greatest level of headache, too. Fogarty says the car is close but not where he’d want it for the race. Fairytale ending? Might just be, given the team. Of course, conspiracy theorists will cry foul, just as they did in 2009 and, roughly, every year.

Later,

DC

AIN’T NO PRETTY PICTURES HEREIN; JUST PCIKIN’ and GRINNIN’

In no particular order, here are the teams (one car or five), which in the rarely humble opinion of Yours Truly have the better chance of scoring a GT podium for the 2010 Rolex 24 At Daytona.

BUCKLER’S TIDE ALSO RISES

The Racers Group's Kevin and Debra Buckler went from a garage-parts retailer to one of Porsche's largest independent parts sellers worldwide.

The Buckler’s (and both, along with their three children are here) brought five Porsches to Daytona in an effort for the team to acquire, win or otherwise gain a fifth Rolex Daytona timepiece since first winning its class in 2002.

As compared to 10 years ago, on the professional front TRG today is the Big Gorilla that other race teams seek to take down.

As if to further buttress an already formidable effort, Buckler hooks up with today’s Other Big Gorilla, Flying Lizards’ Seth Neiman, who also puts 2007 Porsche Cup winner Johannes van Overbeek and reigning Rolex 24 winners Patrick Long and Jörg Bergmeister in the drivers’ seat. Yes, Neiman also is a driver of the car but let’s be clear: the man wants the Rolex 24 win and he didn’t achieve his present life’s status by making like a dummy. Result of the combination: Still Bigger Gorilla.

But wait, there’s more as another hotshot Porsche duo, Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas, are in the No. 71 TRG Porsche - their car number mimicking that of TRG’s sister-company’s Chevrolet in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series and from which comes 2000 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Bobby Labonte who, like his two-timing Cup champ-brother Terry Labonte, has an ardent love for racing sportscars every now and again.

Rounding out the five-driver team are Tim George and Spencer Pumpelly, the latter having also claimed a Rolex Daytona timepiece in a 2007 Rolex 24 GT-class victory – in a Porsche, of course.

“The one thing I like most about Kevin is that he’s a team owner who likes to win,” Labonte said.

“Every team has a budget, of course, but Kevin will do all he can to give his drivers, no matter where they race, all they need to get that win. There just aren’t too many owners anymore with that mindset and it's a big reason I went with him over on the Sprint Cup side."

But wait, there’s still more in TRG’s No. 66 Porsche, at the wheel of which will be found 2006 Rolex Series GT driving champion Andy Lally, 2005 Rolex 24 winner Wolf Henzler, Ted Ballou and a California cat named Kelly Collins - who in 2007 captured the Rolex Series’ GT championship’s top driving honors. In 2001, Collins teamed with Andy Pilgrim, Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in a GTS Corvette for a fourth place finish, overall. Some of Collins' and Pilgrim's stories of that magical time leave listeners rolling with laughter; others, not so.

(It’s at this point that an official Chevrolet media release would also glowingly convey as to how the four cheered on fellow ‘teammates’ – Ron Fellows, Franck Freon, Johnny O’Connell and Chris Kneifel – as their No. 4 Corvette took an overall and class first-place finish, but I ain’t going there.)

As if the preceding team talent isn’t enough, TRG has still more from whence the above came – but with no intended disrespect, it’s time to move on to Alex Job Racing’s No. 23 Porsche.

THE SINGLE GORILLA

Alex Job has mastered almost all things Porsche and especially in endurance events, having first honed his ability for Daytona endurance events back in 1976 when Job co-drive a 914/6 here.

As he’s done in recent years (except when tangling with cars while on a motorcycle) Job’s been more inclined to do his thing in the pits, this year putting Jack Baldwin, Claudio Burtin, Dominik Farnbacher, Mitch Pagerey and Martin Ragginger in the No. 23 Foametix Porsche.

Ragginger’s snowboarding while enjoying “downtime” evidently paid off here in early January's frigid Daytona conditions, often putting the AJR Porsche at the top of the GT time boards.

Just a few short years ago when the Ruby Tuesday really wasn’t, as yet, AJR came in with a Porsche-powered Crawford DP03 and all but stood Rolex 24 participants on their ears. That car was so fast that it was capable of running laps around competitors without a lot of "yellow" help. Ultimately, the team was derailed by two too many transaxle bearing failures.

In returning to the GT ranks Job essentially has returned home and knows how to handle Buckler, it’s just that there’s another fleet of cars with which all of the Porsche guys will first have to contend.

However, most think five drivers are at least one too many in set-up compromises.

THE MAZDA ARMADA

One manufacturer has finally decided to go toe-to-toe with Porsche – the all-time long-distance race champ, for sure, and therefore quantitatively popular in every Rolex 24 since Dr. Ferdinand Porsche said “Vroom!” (in Deutsch, natürlich!). Still, Porsche will enjoy a nearly 2-to-1 numbers advantage.

The "zoom-zoom" at Daytona first started when New Jersey Mazda dealer Ray Walle drove his Mazda to the 1975 Rolex 24, with co-driver Tom Reddy captured Mazda's first Rolex 24 class win and then drove the doggone car back to New Jersey post race.

While doubtful 2008 Rolex 24 winner and SpeedSource team owner Sylvain Tremblay has driven, or even will drive his winning Mazda RX-8 back and forth along Interstate 95 to his shop, one can easily imagine he’d rather like doing such.

So dominating was Tremblay, Nick Ham, David Haskell and Raphael Matos’ performance in the 2008 Rolex 24 that Mazda-craving folks started coming out of the woodwork.

Ham is almost certain this will be his last ride with Tremblay - a strange thing when one considers Ham is fast, fast and, in case you missed it, fast.

Still, Tremblay's done alright by hisownself and, one presumes, he's thought carefully about the matter.

Ham? Frankly, he's torn between undertaking culinary school and continuing to race. The overall problem is that those in the restaurant business are more likely to spend time working than race car drivers and Ham wants also to have the extra time to walk, hike, ski and break legs on and around the Rocky Mountain peaks near his home.

There are others, also possessive of a British accent like that of Ham, who are interested …

The SpeedSource built, crewed and tanked No. 69 of Emil Assentato, Anthony Lazzaro, Nick Longhi and Jeff Segal is likely to do just as well as the mother lode. It's been known to find Victory Lane, too.

Last season started with Tremblay's No. 70 defending Rolex 24 champs rupturing a fuel cell early and it just didn’t get a whole lot better as the season went on - though the Mazda squad's talking points included pointing the fickle finger of fate in the Pirelli Tires' direction.

“I’d have to say that was our Achilles heel last year,” Tremblay said of the 2009 season.

“I think this year’s Achilles heel is my not charging enough” for the Mazdas that SpeedSource has assembled (after receiving the frames from Riley Technologies) for Rolex Sports Car and Continental Tire series competition - all built during the off-season break in Tremblay’s Sunrise, Florida-based SpeedSource Engineering shop.

“The guys in the shop really worked hard to get 10 cars built between the end of last season and the beginning of this one,” Tremblay said.

The most recent Mazda RX-8 was delivered in late-December to Patrick Dempsey Racing, which this year doubled its team operations.

“Oh, don’t worry, I think he’ll make it,” Patrick Dempsey Racing head Joe Foster deadpanned when told of Tremblay’s wishing he'd charged more for a new Mazda chassis.

Count ‘em, seven Mazda RX-8’s are in this weekend’s Rolex 24 At Daytona at Daytona International Speedway and therefore leads more than a few folks to opine the twice-around-the-clock battle will be among the noisiest in Rolex 24 history.

Suggestion to DIS president Robin Braig: get more telephone operators.

In the No. 41 PDR RX-8, the result of a smartly expanded Patrick Dempsey Racing program, defending Rolex GT driving champ and now ex-Porsche guy Leh Keen is joined by former Roush Driver X participant James Gue (goo-EH; and get used to it, too, because he and Keen are likely to be among those actually contending for season-long championship honors).

For the most part, the duo say they hope only to put in a solid Rolex 24, come out with some likewise solid points and head down the road solidly in the championship hunt.

The two drivers are joined by Dave Lacey and Don Kitch Jr. - the latter having over the years raised $3.4 million for Seattle's Children's Hospital and, after a short retirement from Rolex 24 competition, is back with a new $5 million goal. The reality is that Kitch is the weakest link and might be content to just do laps. Keen and Gue are interested in doing laps, too, but at the front of the pack because finishing 15th or better this year sends those teams home with the same number of points.

Getting downright uppity about paddock-wide “sandbagging” accusations during the early December and early January DIS tests, the No. 41's Gue just up and set a GT fast-lap before a likewise sandbagging Porsche - the crews of which having previously complained about the sandbagging RX8 - went out and set a still-faster lap in the hands of "Red Rocket" Long, mentioned earlier as a member in good standing of the Still Bigger Gorilla team.

THE GOOD OL' RED, WHITE and BLUE

One gets the feeling that flying under the radar screen might sometimes be a preferred battle plan but it's one that hardly can be followed when some fellow by the name of Mike Johnson directs the operations of a screaming new red/white/blue Camaro GT.R fielded by Stevenson Motorsports – of which there are two: the No. 57 of Andrew Davis, Robin Liddell and Jan “Busted Butt” Magnussen; the No. 97 of Mike “Україна Not Polska” Borkowski, Gunter Schaldach, Matt Bell and Brady Refenning.

Frankly, even after a couple of multi-day tests it's hard to pin down what makes this team among those who are thought to be "podium material" until one realizes that the team wasn't on anyone's radar screen as recently as two seasons ago - during which they've been championship contenders in each.

ONE MORE QUIET TEAM

The Miller Barrett Racing No. 48 seems to have been in somewhat of a thrash while here.

While always best to work out any problems in a test, one nonetheless thought perhaps such would’ve been accomplished by now after Bryce Miller formed the team in the middle of 2009 - while doing so conveying an intent to shape the team for pursuit of a 2010 championship season. They've been fairly quiet and that sometimes makes others nervous - for good reason.

THE BMW GT CONNECTION

Two BMW M6 teams, the No. 32 Corsa Team PR1 (Rob Finlay, Max Hyatt, Thomas Merrill and Tom Westphal) and the No. 94 Turner Motorsport (Bill Auberlen, Paul Dalla Lana, Joey Hand and Boris Said) have been relatively quiet - as quiet as one can be with a throaty 8-cylinder engine.

Some in the GT class are scared of the BMW M6, which until this season has largely been a non-starter.

Frankly, does the Corsa team - as good as it may be - have a deep enough talent pool beyond Finlay? Such doesn't bode well for a podium, much less a victory. However, there has been more than one improbable victory recorded during the Rolex 24's previous 47 races.

The real wild card in the BMW GT camp, however, is Turner Motorsports.

Mr. Dalla Lana isn't your typical professional road racer because, as president of NorthWest Value Partners Inc., and chairman and of NorthWest HealthCare Properties, he isn't. (Frankly, one wonders why a Canadian-born chap heads a Canada-based, health-care-related company - admittedly limited to leasing only 3-million square feet space for such - when a supposedly successful universal publicly owned health care system is at work in our neighbor country to the north. Beats me, but be assured the question's answer will be sought).

But Auberlen, Hand and Said know a thing or two about pedaling in fast manner - and in BMW-powered hotrods to boot (one wild and crazy year, Auberlen, Hand and Said absolutely, positively and completely dominated the Rolex Series' GT division in Tom Milner BMWs).

Should Mr. Lana be smart enough to get the heck out of the way when needed, he might just be showing off a new Rolex Daytona at his next board meetings.

Then again, if Mark Patterson, John Pew and Hurley Haywood can do it, why not Lana?

(Hurley: I'm just bustin' chops, man, but the reality is that you're a gentleman.)

WANT SOME REAL IRONY?

More than a few otherwise well-connected types on Friday were surprised to learn that Continental Tire had not only taken on title sponsorship of the former Shock-Absorber series but will supply tires to the 2011 Rolex Series, as well.

It all started with Pirelli last summer seeking to renew its relationship with Grand-Am.

Put another way, Pirelli fired the first volley, supposedly "friendly," which led to its own demise in the Rolex Series.

The Rolex Series, having assured other tire makers it'd give them a chance to participate (bid) in future contracts, honored its word and, well, the rest is history.

Of course, Pirelli reportedly didn't help its own cause when it reportedly fell short of supplying tires that were somewhere reportedly short of acceptable to Grand-Am competitors until it reportedly rolled out the 2010 tire.

Evidently a classic "too little; too late" scenario or, at least, that's what was passed between rocks and hard places over the last half-year or so.

Later,

DC

JOHNSON LEARNS A LESSON

DAYTONA BEACH – For those outside of the loop on four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champ Jimmie Johnson's trials and tribulations encountered while engaged in practice for Saturday's 48th Rolex 24 At Daytona (24-hours of non-stop racing action, folks, beginning at 3:30 p.m. and seen on SPEEDtv):

Just as would be expected of a talented race car driver who's nailed four, count 'em four NASCAR Sprint Cup championships, Mr. Johnson was moving the mail at roughly Turn-4 of Daytona International Speedway's 3.56-mile road course.

For all you folks more familiar with the Big D's tri-oval configuration, the sportycar types deal with just a little more than a mile's worth of extra asphalt that has a few extra turns. So, it can be a tad confusing. Been there; done that myself.

The road course's Turn 4 - pretty darn far from NASCAR Turn 4 - is otherwise termed "The Kink" because a properly configured race car is capable of traveling the section at a speed various sportscar folks have estimated at between 90-150 mph. Unfortunately, just like just about everyone else in the racing world, they can only convey the "gear" and it's corresponding "RPM" reading at a given point - while the rest of the world expresses speed in MPH or KPH.

Why they do this is kinda of beyond this writer, especially when the racing types repeatedly say things like "fan involvement." Well, it seems that if "fan involvement" really was big on the agenda, then the racers should talk in at least one aspect to which fans can directly relate. But no, so as to save four pounds (if that much) they won't use speedometers.

But this writer digresses.

Bottom line: Mr Johnson had a shunt, a monosyllabic description that means something like: "A car and its driver drove off course in a largely if not certainly uncontrolled manner and continued to travel pall mall until an outside force was able to channel, dissipate or otherwise cause the initial force to cease." (One supposes it could be said the outside agency exerted a "force of equal or greater energy" but then opened for discussion would be all sorts of stuff like "conservation" and, maybe, eventually, E=MC².)

(Let's not.)

"I had gone through the turn the lap before and the GT car in front of me gave me the line," Mr. Johnson said as he intently watched repairs being undertaken Thursday evening on the No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Chevrolet-Riley Daytona Prototype he wrecked earlier.

"The next lap, I was going through the turn again and was coming up on (another) GT car and figured he'd do the same thing; he didn't."

Instead, the slower car abruptly moved to the right and into Johnson's path in an area that while the track might be plenty wide for double-wide cars poking along at, say, 60 mph, it wasn't wide enough for cars going faster than that.

"I had nowhere to go but to the right and into the grass," Johnson said.

Well, if grass and dirt were good enough, asphalt and/or concrete-paved roads wouldn't be necessary, anywhere.

Johnson commenced his shunt, which lasted somewhere around 200-250 meters (sportycar talk for "a long way").

"I had a couple of seconds before impact and I saw the guardrail coming up. I figured there were some tires on the other side to absorb the impact. There weren't.

"There was one place on the whole track where they didn't have tires and I hit it; just my luck," the uninjured Johnson chuckled.

"I kind of scrunched up," Johnson said while drawing his hands and arms tightly to the front of his chest and abdomen, at the same time lowering his head - as though one were attempting to do an abdomen crunch-style exercise.

"Then I realized it might be better to relax my neck a little so I lifted my head and let the HANS do its thing."

Johnson's resultant knock into the guardrail (similar to the blue barriers seen at Watkins Glen) set off something akin to a land, air and sea search involving one helicopter, a commercial air carrier and Johnson's personal airplane that ultimately fetched a mostly flat, roughly 3x4 tube-steel bordered stainless-steel plate that replaced the damaged part. One is certain it’s got a fancy name but so do some other things not easily remembered.

Some descriptions would've had one believe it was the car's entire rear. Well, when one added the transaxle, gearbox and engine (bodywork, too!), it pretty much was the car's rear. But it wasn't all, or even "mostly" chassis, for sure.

Team manager Terry Wilbert of Lewisville, Texas, (but born in Louisville, Ky. – go figure) said the team likely would "have the car back together and buttoned up" well before the 2 a.m. Saturday limit placed on it by Rolex Series officials.

At any rate, Johnson felt poorly over having wrecked a car in which fellow racers Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney had won the 2009 Rolex Sports Car Series championship (the second of two by the GAINSCO team, the first coming in 2007).

Indeed, team engineer Kyle Brannan (kinda of similar to Chad Knaus' to the No. 48 Hendrick Chevrolet's operation) felt the car would be "as good as new" when repairs were completed.

"We'll just set her up with the data we have and put her back on the track," Brannan said.

"Who knows? Fate's a strange thing," Wilbert - who'd be the rough equivalent of "car chief" - added. "We might just win the next three races."

Asked if he learned a lesson, Johnson quickly responded, "Give 'em the line (on the track) and if I gotta crash, then find somewhere that has some tires!"

You just gotta love this guy.

Later,

DC

A TEENAGER AGAIN

THE READER'S FILE

ON THE WAGON

Q. DC, can you try to get some info on the Childress Howard/Crawford status? We need them back! - Former Gentleman Jack Drinker.

Dear Gen. Jack, Retired,

Thanks for asking!

After a number of conversations with various involved parties, the bottom line is that Richard Childress Racing's NASCAR-side loss of Brown-Forman Corporation's Jack Daniels brand brought with it a corresponding loss of the Gentleman Jack brand on the Rolex Series side - though one isn't certain if one program's loss was directly connected with the other because Brown-Forman omitted telling anyone of the latter, at least publicly so.

Still living large (as, say, compared to the average earthquake survivor) despite Brown-Forman's loss, Mr. Childress shouldn't be faulted for having years ago mastered race team ownership's First Principle: "Have someone else pay the bills."

Sadly, it's a lesson Max and Jan Crawford somehow must have largely missed in Racing 101, or entirely disregarded it, bless their pea-picking hearts. However, such is understandable because sportscar racing types like the Crawford family generally tend toward the "romantic" side of racing. Indeed, Max supposedly still wears goggles and a flowing wool scarf when he drives his '63 Austin Healey 3000 MK2 - only with the top down - which he reportedly years ago acquired in an even-up trade for a McLaren F1 supercar.

"I like my hair to flow in the breeze and you just can't do that in the McLaren, however fast, because of the #$@*&+$*%! center-positioned driver's seat," Max Crawford didn't really say because, even though a sportscar racing enthusiast, he likely didn't have the "mad" money to splurge on a McLaren - though I'll bet a dime to a quarter he'd love to have one (actually, wouldn't everyone?)(but if everybody had one, there wouldn't be a love song … or something like that).

The above embellishments actually being slightly off the real-world mark, one thing remains true: the Crawfords ardently love sportscar racing but were facing some hard choices when word in mid-summer 2009 started filtering through the oak barrel staves that Louisville, Kentucky's Brown-Forman, one of the largest American-owned companies in the wine and spirits business, was "reconsidering its connections with automobile racing."

Hope nonetheless sprang eternal that Jack Daniel's sister liquor (nope, not gonna even touch it) silver-on-black paint scheme would still cover the Rick Howard and Richard Childress' Crawford DP (it did look cool) in 2010. Hope started fading fast by the season's next-to-last race at Salt Lake City when a Crawford family member said that lead driver Andy Wallace (near left) – spouse of engineer Katherine Wallace (middle left), son-in-law of Crawford Composites principals Max and Jan Crawford - was told "the family didn't wish to stand in his way should he desire to drive elsewhere."

When talking about a driver with Wallace's résumé, it isn't difficult to imagine a loving family was merely signaling its willingness to allow a race-proven, race-winning and championship driver the opportunity to again stretch winning legs with a team of similar immediate capability - in response to which Wallace said something very British, very loyal and stayed put so as to help develop a Crawford DP that actually started to show potential.

During the 2009 season the second-generation Crawford DP08 improved quantitatively over its first 2008 on-track foray in the Sahlen's Six Hours Of The Glen at Watkins Glen International, where it wore the No. 23 of Ruby Tuesday, was fielded by Alex Job Racing but, as if to serve notice on troubles to come, was unceremoniously DQ'd from its first-ever qualification run (whereupon Alex Job took on the appearance of a whirring, whirling, spark-spewing, whistling and popping fireworks display - only Job did it nonstop for, like, days. One now knows officials are issued fuse stocks and the means by which to alight all - sometimes simultaneously).

The DP08's inability at the time to plant the front end and stick to the road when not turning was its initial Achilles Heel and, combined with timing (such being "everything"), AJR was at a point where its sponsor, already besieged with bad economic news, was looking for a lot of good news to justify a contract renewal.

"Good news" is most often equated only with "win" - especially by sponsors - but something rarely seen in a brand-spanking-new prototype racer and especially one coming from a quintessential "mom and pop" operation. While racing folks can be "good people" like the Crawfords, a David-and-Goliath comparison is grossly insufficient when describing the monetary disparity between "a little guy" and a multi-billion-dollar automobile manufacturer whose $1 million testing program leaves at least another $999 million to blow elsewhere.

After little under a year's development, in late 1964 Ford's GT40 program had yet to accomplish that sought through an evolution of Englishman Eric Broadley's original 1963 Lola Mk 6. Ford then handed the project's reins to Carroll Shelby, for the most part shipping the program lock, stock and barrel across the Atlantic Ocean (and the Continental U.S.) to Shelby American. One of two entries driven by a now-legendary driving pair named Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby, the Ford GT40 on Feb. 25, 1965, would win its first classic endurance race (12:27:09; 1,243.37 miles) by five laps at Daytona International Speedway.

Meanwhile, Harley Cunningham's private-entry Lotus-Ford Cortina driven by Buck Baker (yep, that Baker family) and Bob Tullius (yep, that Tullius family) finished 31st as one of eight cars competing in the same class as the Ford GT40s.

By the 1966 LeMans, the Ford GT40 program would itself become legendary with a 1-2-3 finish - with still more races to win in GT40 iterations and derivations - but nonetheless is illustrative of a factory's power of wealth, from a program's beginning to its end. “Harley Cunningham” left very few subsequent racing clues.

The Little Guy "manufacturer" often can only additionally lean on a sportscar Patron Saint of the Rob Dyson Order, who quite possibly is the single greatest reason behind the World Sports Car concept getting off the ground. Dyson personally commissioned the kick-butt Riley & Scott MkIII in 1994 and with which Dyson Racing later (1997, 1999) would leave its considerable mark on the Rolex 24 At Daytona. In another instance, Bill Riley once said, "On the Thursday before the Monday we were set to close the doors for good" Chip Ganassi delivered a check which kept the doors open and enabled the building of the first two Daytona Prototypes (No. 001; for the last couple of seasons racing and winning at AIM Autosport).

The Bill Riley or Max Crawford shops would otherwise close its doors; GM and Chrysler get loans from you, me and the rest of the U.S. taxpayer base.

  All but out of time with its new Crawford DP08 by mid-summer 2008, AJR traded it for a Riley (right, and well, kinda, sorta inasmuch as Job actually leased the Riley). Talented drivers Bill Auberlen (right, below) and Joey Hand (left) did their best, going on to score two top-5 and four top-10 finishes in the season's final four races, but the hour-glass sand vanished as did Ruby Tuesday from AJR.

Likewise, when the sand ran out on Jack Daniel’s NASCAR program it likewise affected the Gentleman Jack even though neither Childress or Crawford really had much to do with the sponsorship's demise - Brown-Forman evidently changing a course undertaken only years before when somebody said something about a NASCAR Sprint Cup race happening at a track at which apparently it was never penciled-in on any of NASCAR's corporate calendars.

Well then, what's happening in 2010 for the Crawford DP08?

Let's put it this way: to get a decent-length post it was necessary to first do some space-filling (above).

Still, by now it's probably become obvious the Jan. 30-31 Rolex 24 At Daytona won't include a Crawford DP08 (though a late DP03 entry-or-two is likely) none of the parties with whom I spoke off the record would definitively state where or the extent to which the car would compete in 2010, but nonetheless stated "it will race at a few tracks." This writer's sense is that it'll run at VIR in April, if nothing else but for that track's proximity to the car's North Carolina base.

Committed to Crawford Composite's continued development of and involvement in the Rolex Sports Car Series - if not in the ownership of the Childress-Howard DP08 - Jan Crawford last week carefully stated, "We are going to do all that's required of us in continuing the development of the Daytona Prototype concept and to continue our partnership with Grand-Am even during these difficult times because it's a concept and organization in which we deeply believe. Max and I already are hard at work on 2011."

TRANSPARENT LAUGH

Q. I've been reading quite a few of your columns over the last hour or so and the teenage girl-style bitchiness about ALMS is very amusing. I hope you've written this in an intentionally amusing manner and don't genuinely believe what you write, though I've a feeling you were probably foaming at the mouth at the time. - Laughable.

Dear Laugh,

Finally catching up on the reading are you, Rob, after the Obama campaign? Still, thanks for reading!

Funny, but your comment sounds eerily repetitious of what Grand-Am's Mark Raffauf said to me last fall, save substitution of "Rolex Series" for "ALMS." However, Raffauf wouldn't put me and "teenage" in the same sentence because he knows I'm older than Job. Furthermore, Raffauf has the temerity to go eye-to-eye with whomever, wherever, so I absolutely, positively and personally know when he's got a beef with me. Still, and though we've at times strenuously disagreed, it's Raffauf's sense for straight talk, often in monosyllabic but appropriately timed grunts, which underlies my considerable respect for him - even though he's wrong most of the time. However, the most significant non-Raffauf coup de grâce arising above is that he wouldn't use "amusing" - a concept so removed from his grasp that even a "happy pill" stands no chance in prompting even so much as a grin from within today's best Fu Manchu.

GRAND-AM COMPETITION BULLETIN WATCH

Yep, veritably days before the Jan. 30-31 Rolex 24 At Daytona, out rolls Grand-Am's first 2010 Competitor Bulletin. You know what "they" say (don't ask me; everyone says "they say," so everyone must know "who says," right?): “Once the seal's been broken the floodgates open!”

SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

Still pretty funky.

(Um, Kevin, I’ll be needing some more Adobe Road 2005 Heritage. You were right, it’s very good and you have good reason to be proud of it. However, my better half has really enjoyed the Adobe Road 2006 Pinot Noir – it’s in one of the coolest bottles I’ve ever seen. Oh, and whatever else “Adobe Road” you’re inclined to shoot my way. Damn good stuff, it is. P.S. DO NOT give any to Raffauf; he’s just not been terribly amusing of late. C ya Bud!)

Later,

DC

FARNBACHER HOLDING HEAD HIGH

DAYTONA BEACH – Noting that the judicial process has yet to run its course, Dominik Farnbacher nonetheless is disturbed at the damage wrought on his family name in the wake of the FBI on Dec. 14 leveling Federal fraud charges (Tile 18, U.S. Code, Sections 1341 and 1343) against Gregory P. Loles, as owner of Apeiron Capital Management Inc., and who also operates Easton Capital Management, Inc., such fraud having been alleged as begun in November 2001 and continuing to until at least the day of his Dec. 11, 2009, arrest.

The FBI said Loles operated a nonexistent fund, Knightsbridge Holdings ARB, and after promising investors - including St. Barbara's Greek Orthodox Church in Orange, Conn. – of returns between 7- percent and 7.75-percent, Loles generated false statements and paid out so-called "interest payments" derived strictly from incoming or on-hand principal that wasn't actually invested.

Further, the FBI alleges Loles diverted investor funds for personal use as well as into sportscar team Farnbacher-Loles Motorsports, in which Loles had an interest.

“It hurts to see my father (Horst Farnbacher) and my family name so maligned in connection to this incident,” driver Dominik Farnbacher said after concluding Friday's first day of Rolex 24 At Daytona testing at Daytona International Speedway's Roar Before The 24.

“We didn’t know what was happening until it started to unravel .”

Though the FBI has yet to allege, much less show any connection between the Farnbachers and Loles' alleged financial misdealing, the allegations against Loles still has had a negative effect upon Farnbacher on his family merely through the racing family's team connection to Loles.

“My father worked hard for many years, especially in Europe, to build a business in racing and in other activities that was based on honesty and trust," Dominik Farnbacher said.

"As many people in Europe know, my father is a fair man and honest man. It's very sad that he and our family are connected to something in which we were not involved."

In a stunning Rolex Sports Car Series debut that introduced Dominik Farnbacher to Daytona International Speedway, he and teammates Wolf Henzler, Shawn Price and Pierre Ehret drove the team's Farnbacher Loles No. 71 Porsche to a three-lap GT class victory in the 2005 Rolex 24 At Daytona.

"The whole race was pretty phenomenal, I couldn't believe we won" . . . "I am going to give my (winning Rolex) watch to my father because he made it possible for me to be here," Farnbacher said after the 2005 win.

This weekend, Farnbacher is in the No. 23 Foametix/Battery Tender Porsche GT fielded by Alex Job Racing, which got off to a quick start by claiming Friday's second-fastest GT times.

"At the end of the day we had the fastest (GT) run going until Patrick (Long and his No. 67 Flying Lizards TRG Porsche) took it on his last lap," team owner Alex Job said.

Switching gears to speak about the Farnbachers, Job said, "I don't know that anyone is giving Dominik or Horst a hard time over this Loles deal, but I fear human nature might lead some to do so; they're way off base if that's the case."

"Both Dominik and his Horst are among the best people I've known in racing and neither deserve any of a bad rap that others may have created."

Later,

DC

SPINNING THE DAY AWAY

 

(No, Kevin, not "sinning")

"Oh, great, that means cold tires and I'll probably spin on my first out lap," Butch Leitzinger said when advised Tuesday of this weekend's expected Daytona weather. (For your own look at the National Weather Service's Daytona Beach predictions, click here.)

Leitzinger will be hanging with half of the 2009 Rolex 24 winners, David Donohue and Darren Law, who'll be piloting Brumos Racing's No. 59 Porsche-Riley for the 2010 season. The other two 2009 winners, Antonio Garcia and Buddy Rice, are in a No. 90 Spirit of Daytona ride for the 2010 Rolex Sports Car Series season, which starts with the Jan. 30-31 Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Leitzinger in1988 shared a Nissan 300ZX with his father, Bob Leitzinger, and brother, Chuck Kurtz, for his first Rolex 24. The team finished fifth in GTU and 24th overall.

Since then, Butch Leitzinger has won three Rolex 24s, the first coming in 1994 with Scott Pruett, Paul Gentilozzi and Steve Millen in another Nissan 300ZX (GTS class, this time), completing 707 laps and veritably cruising to a 22-lap margin of victory over a second-place Bob Wollek, Dominique Dupuy, Jesus Peraja-Mayo and Juergen Barth's Porsche 911S LM.

That year's closest-finishing WSC prototype, a Spice-Oldsmobile AK93 (ask your grandfather) - open-cockpit's first year of competition and from which the current-generation Audi R-series would spawn - finished ninth and was driven by Price Cobb, Jeremy Dale, Ruggero Melgrati and Bob Schader. 

Butch Leitzinger then followed with wins in 1997 and 1999, came close in 2005 in a second-place with Jimmie Johnson and full-season teammate Elliott Forbes-Robinson, driving the Ricky Howard, David Brule-owned No. 4 Pontiac-Crawford DP-03 (right).

The following year, in 2006, Johnson would win his first of four NASCAR Sprint Cup championships, the most recent in 2009.

"I guess you could say Jimmie wouldn't have won 'em if not for driving with Elliott and me," Butch said tongue-in-cheek.

"Really, you could see even back then that Jimmie was loaded with talent. Even though it was his first time in a sportscar we didn't have to teach him a lot. He absorbed it all pretty quickly."

Johnson will team again this year with the GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing No. 99 Pontiac-Riley in the hunt for a treasured Rolex timepiece only a relatively few racers will ever wear.

Having "hung around the last couple of years" during Daytona tests trying to get a Rolex 24 ride, Leitzinger expressed honor in teaming with Brumos Racing for the Jan. 30-31 twice-around-the-clock race.

"To come back and be able to run with a team having the quality of Brumos is beyond my expectations," he said.

"But because the Brumos ride is only for the (Rolex) 24, I'm hoping to scare up a ride for the rest of the season while I'm down there. At least I'll be able to talk with some teams about that."

Still, for those who are coming to a "sunny, warm" Daytona Beach, the latest-available National Weather Service Melbourne (not Australia) office statement (as of 8 a.m. Thursday) reads:

"Friday: A 30 percent chance of showers, mainly after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 52. Wind chill values as low as 32 early. Southwest wind 5 to 15 mph becoming northwest. Winds could gust as high as 20 mph.

"Friday Night: A chance of rain showers before 4am, then a chance of rain showers, snow showers, and sleet. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 33. Wind chill values as low as 26. Northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. "

A fifth-generation Florida boy (and there aren't many, relative to the nearly seven-in-ten, non-native Floridians now living in the state) knows that Friday's conditions could create one of those very rare times - about once every 15-20 years - that snow floats in the Daytona Beach skies.

And no, fifth-generation Florida boys, having gotten over snow flurries long, long ago, aren't thrilled to see such. At least this one isn't.

The primary reason: Floridians, the multi-generational native kind, have only the barest of clues as to how to deal with roads so cold that tire compounds don't easily grip.

Though he probably didn't know it, Leitzinger hit the nail on the head with regard to spinning cars. Only, they'll be doing it in a lot of places other than on Daytona International Speedway's 3.56-mile road course.

Yet, that $10 DIS price of admission - for those who haven't got the wherewithal for hiding in unheated car trunks or possessing credentials - is looking like a better value minute by minute.

Dress warmly, because Ye Ol' NWS Melbourne (not Australia) office predicts it's only gonna get even colder Saturday and Sunday.

ADDING ON

A Thursday-morning perusal of the Jan 8-10 Roar Before The 24 Entry List shows some late adds, just when some were wondering, "Wonder what happened to Scott Tucker's team, which showed such great promise last year?"

The answer: Tucker's Level 5 Motorsports is bringing two (Steve Dinan tweaked) BMW-powered Rileys to this weekend's three-day test at DIS, whereupon Rolex Series cars hit the track at 9 a.m. Friday. On the track at 10 a.m. are those cars on hand for the GRAND-AM (all-caps, newest style) newly named Continental Tire Sports Car (still two words even though most publications, under the "Local Rules" provision of the AP Stylebook's "Rules Of Golf," allow for the one-word sportscar variation) Challenge.

The latter brings to mind the old Firehawk Series, wherein Skip Barber's Terry Earwood once won a race or two. Earwood did a little better in the world of drag racing, eventually admitted to a hall-of-fame or two.

Seems to me the now long gone Firestone Firehawk Series ran on street radials having shaved tread, but only slightly so.

Boy, tread might come in handy Friday at DIS.

Tucker's Level 5 Motorsports is bringing its Nos. 55 and 95 cars along with 1995 Rolex 24 winner Christophe Bouchut, who in 2009 joined Frenchman Romain Dumas (each contesting for a win) in pulling a Rolex Series restart violation and saw a probable victory (at Watkins Glen) nullified as a result (well, okay, Bouchut only pulled the boner half as often as Dumas and a third as often as Dumas and co-driver Timo Bernhard, combined; those incidences being at least partly responsible for Penske Racing's 2009 sportscar win shutout).

(Of course, despite this writer having been smacked with cold, hard realities that romanticism rarely overcomes, one is inclined to give Penske Racing a little credit for at least running in the 2009 Rolex Sports Car Series when they could've stayed where they'd previously raced and likely again would've won nearly every race - which for the past defeated was like squaring off for a knife fight with someone wielding a grapeshot-filled howitzer.

Tucker's a competent driver, having won the 2009 Ferrari Challenge and having in the past competed well but falling just short of the title in the same series - but the 24-hour race ain't nothing like the Challenge.

Bouchut is one fast, smooth driver. So is Raphael Matos. The two paired last year with Tucker and longtime Level 5 type-of-guy Ed Zabinski in the No. 55 BMW-Riley, finishing 19th overall after 665 laps.

For a decent shot at scoring some very, very expensive Rolex timepieces and with Matos already teamed at Brumos Racing, Tucker will be looking elsewhere for driving talent - the good news being that the price of acquiring such is relatively cheaper this year.

Should Tucker get a compliment of competent drivers the team's probability of finishing well will increase proportionately and should be considered a substantial dark horse.

Still another BMW team, "Starworks Motorsports," was a late sign-up, too, for this weekend. After the Rolex 24 the driving team - which includes Grand-Am veterans Bill Lester and Dion Von Moltke - will morph into two Daytona Prototypes, at least according to a team principal - some guy by the name of Peter Baron.

"We don't think of ourselves as a dark horse," Baron said after hearing a reporter say as much about his team's 2007 second-place Rolex 24 run.

"This deal was the next-to-latest I've ever put together," Baron said, adding that the latest he'd worked to put a deal together and have it happen was Christmas Eve 2006 - the deal that led to the SAMAX taking second on the following Rolex 24's podium.

At least five BMW engines now are in the 2010 Rolex 24 - a quantitative improvement over the last few years that harkens to that of the Ford-engine "migration" a few seasons ago.

The reason: the Dinan BMW V8 engine is stout and excellently tuned - people are learning of it.

Mike Hull - since the early 1990's the organizational brain behind Chip Ganassi Racing's success in open wheel and sportscar racing - recently spoke of Dinan's "professionalism" and his engine team's on-the-ground "technical expertise" in as high a manner as this writer has ever heard Hull speak.

Speaking frankly, Hull had expected worse, though he didn't put sit in as few words. Bottom line: Hull's impressed with Dinan's operation.

In the hands of a crack driver like Bill Auberlen, a Dinan-tuned BMW engine proved itself years ago by scoring a surprise victory for Sigalsport at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2007.

Dinan's engine has only gotten better, since.

STILL MORE DAYTONA PROTOYPES?

Rumors are stirring of another prospective two-to-four Rolex 24 DPs on the radar screen but even if they don't show, the 15-or-so that'll be at the Rolex 24 shouldn't be terribly surprising given the overall economy - one that's improving, for sure, but still with a long way to go.

Coming up: don't take "Loles" out on Dominik Farnbacher.

Later,

DC

ROCK ON

 

KEEP ON DANCIN'

"Remember, no matter what anyone says, Rock On!" - Shindig! host Jimmy O'Neill, circa 1966.

Excepting tangential, uh, tangents over the previous couple of days, heading into this weekend's Roar At The 24 your correspondent has been kinda, sorta following the 2009 Rolex 24 At Daytona's finishing order, using it as a base from which to wax tangentially.

"tangent (noun): a trigonometric function that is equal to the sine divided by the cosine for all real numbers θ for which the cosine is not equal to zero and is exactly equal to the tangent of an angle of measure θ in radians." - Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged

And here this writer thought "tangent" is "the angle of the dangle." Well, thank goodness Webster's cleared that whole deal up (and you just know some engineering types - Dion Von Moltke, Ricky and Jordan Taylor, come to mind - read the above and, just about the time other brains went into "tilt" mode, said, "Well, but of course! Like, really, dude.").

Speaking of the Family Taylor: Shelley still is the best looking (sorry, Wayne).

Furthermore speaking of the SunTrust Racing No. 10 Ford-Dallara …

Drivers Massimiliano Angelelli and Brian Frisselle finished third in the Rolex Sports Car Series' year-end championship driver standings after starting the championship season fourth by benefit of their fourth-place Rolex 24 at Daytona finish - a whopping 10.589-seconds behind first place.

(Still, the 2009 Rolex 24's top four-car finishing spread boggles the mind. A repeat or near repeat of such finish likely won't be seen in this scribe's lifetime.)

TIRED OF WAITING

Joining MaxAxe Angelelli and Br. Frisselle in 2009 were Pedro Lamy and team-owner Wayne Taylor.

The above "Br. Frisselle" made necessary by yet another Frisselle, Bra(d) who either named Bu(rt)
"The Older" Frisselle and Br(ian) "The Younger" Frisselle or acquiesced when Terrye Frisselle named 'em. Actually, it all goes a bit deeper, but space, like attention spans, is limited.

Taylor, along with MaxAxe and Emmanuel Collard, won the 2005 Rolex 24 when the SunTrust car's primary paint scheme was Menacingly Black. That three-person team, reprised from 2004's 8th-place finish, is the only time the SunTrust team duplicated, or repeated a specific driving team; no "adds," no "subtractions."

By most standards, the single-car SunTrust team has a remarkable Rolex 24 record, having in its six Rolex 24 races finished four times in the top-5 and only once, in 2006, has it finished outside the top 10.

Though familiarity supposedly breeds contempt it as often as not also means success. With SunTrust duplicating its 2009 driving team, it's looking like an early favorite among those capable of winning the weeks-away Jan. 30-31 Rolex 24.

However, given that Mr. Taylor's been known to sometimes dance sans a band and dance floor, the final probabilities also await whether he marches to a different drumbeat between now and month's end.

DEDICATED FOLLOWER OF FASHION

Reportedly replete with bobble-heads, Mark Patterson's (at left with spouse Elena) 2010 Rolex Series Farewell Tour officially is underway with the official Jan. 30-31 Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Nevertheless, one can see and bid him adieu this weekend at Daytona International's Roar Before The 24 (also known by the less than grandiose "Test Days" moniker; hung on it years ago when Mark Raffauf was somewhere in the vicinity of the race-day controls. Hmmm, come to think of it, he's still in control of the yellow lights).

As of now, The Mark Patterson 2010 Rolex Series Farewell Tour has scheduled only one other race date, the June 5-6 Sahlen's Six Hours Of The Glen, so one should strive to quickly acquire the associated memorabilia.

Known to work hard in the off season to achieve a buff racing bod but with 10-fewer races on his schedule this year, it'll be interesting to see which Patterson shows.

Talk of Patterson merely leads us to a …

PSYCHOTIC REACTION

Strangely, the Count Five recorded Psychotic Reaction in 1966 and six-of-seven Ford-powered Daytona Prototypes failed in the 2009 Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Okay, so there's no obvious parallels in the above, but Ford-engine suppliers Roush Yates and point man John Maddox certainly reacted after the proverbial Original Equipment Manufacturer (relatively) cheap part gave way, dashing at least a few hopes and leaving Maddox after the race to repeatedly mumble something about "divine intervention" having worked to the favor of the No. 10 SunTrust Ford-Dallara's 4th-place finish.

I GO TO PIECES

After an unexpected suspension failure popped the balloon in 2008 of a Rolex 24 race-leading, dominating No. 6 Mike Shank Racing Ford-Riley (and a few other Riley DPs, too), the team was confident such wouldn't happen again after Bill Riley had his way with the recalcitrant parts.

  In the 2009 Rolex 24 all was going as planned when MSR's AJ. Allmendinger (left) drove the No. 6 Ford-Riley into the lead on Lap-139 but turned sour barely 15 laps later, still in the lead, when the first of the Ford engines began to fail.

Six laps later went the No. 76 Krohn Ford-Lola; then MSR's No. 60 Ford-Riley. One by one, otherwise strong-performing Ford-powered DPs fell to the wayside, each apparently having the same problem: a one-off, Rolex Series-only part that conveyed engine management information.

The last to go on Lap 504 was Doran Racing's No. 77 MacDonald's Ford-Dallara, itself having one of its strongest showings in a race which team owner Kevin Doran over the decades has demonstrably loved to win.

By race end, Ford power was in four of the nine cars to have led the race but left only one to finish it.

In the face of negative news akin to the drip, drip of a Chinese water torture, one expected SunTrust's Taylor to have hung cat-like from his team's pit-box canopy but after the other failures was instead resigned, accepting the worse as inevitable but getting much better.

Shank's driving teams, in the plural, is solid by even Shank's standards, even when compared to names like Helio Castroneves, Raphael Matos and Paul Tracy - each of whom having driven a Shank car in the Rolex 24.

MSR lead driver Ozz Negri this year will team in his familiar No. 60 ford-Riley with season-long co-driver John Pew, while Burt Frisselle and Mark Wilkins round out the Rolex 24 team.

In the No. 6 Ford-Riley is the other MSR hotshoe, Michael Valiante - second only to Negri in his relative longevity with the team - who teams with Ricky Taylor for the remainder of the 2010 season (read "serious season-long dark horse"). Filling out the No. 6 Rolex 24 squad are Allmendinger and Patterson, the two reprise an alliance that dates to the 2006 Rolex 24 when the pair - plus Negri and Justin Wilson - finished a surprise second and gave Lexus its sole one-two Rolex 24 finish.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

Finally, Tracy Krohn, Nic "Mudder" Jönsson, Ricardo Zonta and unofficial 2006 Rolex Series driving co-champ Colin Braun - who's gone on to greater fortune in NASCAR's upper-tier series - so far appear to be the only part of what in 2009 was a two-car Krohn Racing assault on North America's crown jewel of endurance racing.

At least a couple of longtime observers thought Krohn Racing would accomplish more in 2009 and they did - starting with New Jersey Motorsports Park where Jönsson and Zonta won going away in the rain - Jönsson's first DP win since a wet Watkins Glen during a 2005 season when Krohn had teamed with a fast-moving North-California winemaker named Kevin Buckler.

One can understand why the team also ended in 2005. But, that's another story told four years ago.

Once the Ford-Lola cleared the Rolex 24's broken engines it motored in the hands of Jönsson and Zonta for 2009, posting a second win in August on The Glen's short course and a third-place between at EMCO Gears' Mid-Ohio show.

The guys were on a roll when, for legal reasons, Krohn pulled the team's plug for 2009's duration after The Glen win, just when most everyone figured Zonta and Jönsson's roll was bound to continue.

Now, still with "Lola" on the car, maybe the team can focus on its promise.

"We have about two years of development on the Proto-Auto Lola now," Jönsson said this week before heading for Daytona.

"I think that 2009 proved the car is as good as any car out there (when) we won two races and had an additional podium."

"I think we have as good of a chance to stand on top of that podium when Daytona comes around as anyone else."

The reality is that however prepared, however talented, however good a driving team may be, at the Rolex 24 everyone still is …

WAITIN' FOR THE MIRACLE

Later,

DC

FACING THE MUSIC

 

Once popular at kids' elementary schools, birthday parties or other social occasions was a game known as "Musical Chairs."

In case someone somehow somewhere is absent of knowledge about the game's nature: Conducted in proximity to a 45 rpm record player (ask your grandfather or, perhaps, great-grandfather), assembled is a group of children who encircle a line of chairs having one fewer in number than the children.

Musical Chairs' Premise: Somebody is gonna lose each time; guaranteed.

(A third grouping further encircling the first two usually is comprised of adults who often alternately display great joy and much despair which, one supposes, nowadays might well lead to fisticuffs. But that's another game; the description of which awaiting some other day.)

Musical Chairs' Play: Whilst children players undertake a slow, Druid-like counterclockwise walk around the chairs' grouping, someone else, usually an adult harboring sadistic tendencies, spins the platter (ask your grandfather or, perhaps, great-grandfather) and places the record-player's arm (ask your grandfather or, perhaps, great-grandfather) so as to reproduce musical sound broadcast by the music player's 2-inch "Hi-Fidelity" speaker (ask your grandfather or, perhaps, great-grandfather or, still yet, someone knowledgeable of The Dark Ages) .

Musical Chairs' Play, continued: The aforementioned record-playing adult will without warning cause the music to abruptly halt, whereupon the once slow-moving counterclockwise circle of children breaks into a scrambled dust cloud wherein each child seeks to occupy a single chair.

Once the available chairs are filled, the remaining, unseated child is removed from the scrum area, as is still another chair. Thus allowed is another cycle of music-induced counterclockwise, Druid-like walking; another dust-up; and, as importantly, another loser.

If accurately contested, the process guarantees losers for each cycle until just one whining, um, no, make that "winning" kid occupies a sole remaining chair - often coincidentally a favored child of the person controlling the music's play.

(NOTE: In 1978, at the start of the "Everyone Should Feel Good" era, Musical Chairs' rules were slightly altered, allowing the chairs' number to equal that of the children. However, children everywhere began complaining after approximately three days' play and it was then the "Feel Gooders" decided it was in the best interest of everyone to altogether banish the game, "So that no one loses, ever again.")

WHEN THE MUSIC'S OVER 

It is the Musical Chairs game which most often comes to this scribe's mind when pondering new and, sometimes, surprising driver-to-ride combinations - most often occurring during racing's supposedly "noncompetitive" off-season. (Non-competitive" my rear: sometime during a spare moment toss a "ride" in the middle of a ride-deprived drivers' group and see what happens.)

Perhaps the earliest and most surprising 2010 drivers' move came at the June 2009 EMCO GEARS Mid-Ohio race when Buddy Rice and Antonio Garcia (at 2009 Rolex 24 with Darren Law, left-to-right) teamed to drive the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Cayenne-Coyote entry.

Garcia and Rice earlier in season teamed with David Donohue and Darren Law in driving the Rolex 24-winning Brumos No. 58 Porsche-Riley.

Now seen as the Coyote "factory team" after Daytona Prototype constructor Eddie Cheever surrendered his team-ownership role in the series, Spirit of Daytona owners Troy and Michele Flis now have at least two fully assembled Coyotes which bear the likely "surprise" engine of 2010 - a Porsche Cayenne-based V-8 being developed by one of racing's longest standing engine tuners, Lozano Brothers Porting (LBP).

Based north of San Antonio in New Braunfels, Texas, the Lozano family business, headed by brothers Mike and Ben Lozano, has for decades been churning out powerful race car power plants, mostly Chevrolet-based, shoe-horned into sprint cars and prototypes - the latter including a now-legendary racing outfit based near Midland, Texas, named "Chaparral."

"This Cayenne project has infused a new level of energy in the guys in the shop," Ben Lozano said.

"I don't want to give the impression that we don't care about the engines we regularly produce because we do care a lot about quality and do our darndest to make sure every engine is the best that can be built. But the new Cayenne project has gotten the creative juices flowing again. It's a completely different animal and we're having a lot of fun learning about it."

Once a Minardi F1 test driver and joining the Coyote team in 2008, Garcia (at far right with Christian Fittipaldi, near left, at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 2008) remains contracted to Cheever as a test driver. The Spaniard also has posted two Le Mans 24-hour GT-class wins (2008, Aston Martin DBR9; 2009), Corvette C6.R).

Rice (snarling  at left in December DIS Test), the 2004 Indy 500 winner, also has deep connections to Cheever beyond their respective Indy 500 wins, including an 18-race driving stint with Red Bull Cheever Racing during the 2002 and 2003 Izod IndyCar Series' seasons.

The two will be joined for the Jan. 30-31 Rolex 24 At Daytona by NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Paul Menard, who in 2010 will drive a Richard Petty Motorsports Ford. In 2002, Menard captured two Rolex Series (American GT) class wins in a Spirit of Daytona Corvette, which earlier in the season was driven by GM factory driver Andy Pilgrim (w/ Craig Conway, Doug Goad, Michael Ciasulli) to a Rolex 24 class win.

Though yet to be officially entered, the Spirit of Daytona team will put its No. 09 Cayenne-Coyote in the show with sportscar ace Guy Cosmo, 5-time Daytona 200 motorcycle champ Scott Russell and Englishman Derek Johnston (pictured below driving in his Radical UK Cup SR8), who drove his Radical SR8 to a 2009 Radical UK Cup series championship.

For 2010, the SOD team has: two outstanding drivers in Garcia and Rice; a dedicated constructor in Cheever, whose motorsports résumé is envied by many; an LBP engine program now beyond embryonic; an increased 2010 test budget; and, a team ownership who has won races and championships at the professional and amateur levels. Look for notable 2010 achievement from this otherwise unheralded team.

Having in an earlier post dealt with much of the change affecting Brumos Racing's Nos. 58 and 59 Porsche-Riley cars, nevertheless remaining are a few notes on the personnel who filled the 2009 Rolex 24's final podium spot.

One-half of Brumos Racing's 2009 No. 59 Porsche-Riley team has morphed into an "associate" car, Action Express Motorsports' No. 9 Porsche Cayenne-powered Riley (also an LBP-tweaked engine).

There were a couple of factors as to why and how this team is now constituted.

Long before passing into the Great Racing Gig In The Sky, former Brumos Racing point man Bob Snodgrass made it clear the two-car team wouldn't last forever and, in his last couple of years, grew closer to at least partially pulling the plug. (at below right, in 2001 at DIS laying a big one on Gainesville Raceway’s Don Robertson, for whom Snodgrass evidently had a “thing”).

However, Snodgrass wasn't what others might characterize as a "loser" (at least, not doing so without considerable personal peril) and therefore kept the two-car effort alive "until we start winning again because I don't want Brumos to be known as a quitter," he said not too long before his untimely death in 2007.

At that time a debate over the team's change of DP constructors was still fresh and while everyone at Brumos hoped the results would quickly come, Snodgrass had been a pragmatic racer and businessman who knew to expect otherwise.

(The “new” No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche Riley at DIS  December Pirelli Tire test.)

 

Such awareness didn't vanish when now-principal team owner Dan Davis - a likewise successful businessman who's attended a majority of Rolex Series races since the team's founding - at Snodgrass' death took a more visible role in the team's operation.

Although Brumos agonizingly came close to winning in 2008, it still was riding a winless streak begun after the No. 58 Porsche-Fabcar (David Donohue, Mike Borkowski) won on 21 Sep., 2003, at Mont Tremblant.

Though assuredly desiring a win wherever it may come, if there is any race Brumos most wishes to win it is the Rolex 24 At Daytona - a race that Brumos' best known face, Hurley Haywood (at far right, suggesting a toothache cure to Wayne Taylor, left, during December DIS Pirelli Tire test) won five times.

(By the way: at Homestead-Miami and Phoenix International in the No. 59 Fabcar-Porsche, Haywood and co-driver J.C. France captured two of Brumos Racing's five 2003 race wins).

When the Brumos name first crossed the 2009 Rolex 24 finish line also ended was a "home track" victory dry spell dating to 1991, when the No. 7 Joest Porsche 962, partially funded by Brumos and driven by Haywood, Louis Krages (a.k.a., John Winter), Henri Pescarolo, Frank Jelinski and Bob Wollek, won the race.

Incidentally, the 1991 Rolex 24 proved to be the 962's final Rolex 24 win - done at the head of a 46-car field.

Again winning races and particularly having done so at the end of sportscar racing's toughest endurance test, Snodgrass and Brumos' mission was fulfilled.

Slash one car budget.

Thus, the No. 9 Action Express Cayenne-Riley is both new and old to the Rolex Series.

"New" in name only, Action Express Racing has the benefit of highly experienced team members, from floor sweeper to drivers.

For the Rolex 24, 2010 fulltime No. 9 drivers Jaoa Barbosa and Terry Borcheller are joined by Scotsman Ryan Dalziel and Switzerland's Mike Rockenfeller. Inasmuch as each driver has a Rolex 24 podium on his résumé, the team is one of the race's most experienced and, likely, deeply undervalued.

At the present essentially being a Brumos operation, Action Express Racing and Brumos Racing have said they'll "share technical information" but, frankly, one is hard pressed to see the value of shared data alternately gathered by V-8 and Flat-six teams when, at the least, engine weight, drive train, transaxle, center of gravity, etc., are surely different.

Oh, in order is one more "old No. 59" driver mention, J.C. France:

Let he who has never missed a shift cast the first gearbox.

A paraphrase, the above is neither flippant or irreverent. It neither provides escape nor excuse. Despite one's philosophical or theological bent, the original conveys great wisdom simply so. This writer merely attempts to convey the thought in a manner perhaps most easily understood by gear heads.

More to come on SunTrust, MSR, TRG, Dempsey Racing, FarnbacherLoles and others before this week's Roar Before The Rolex 24 at Daytona International, but first ...

Later,

DC

CORRECTIONS and OMISSIONS:

Hurley Haywood was regretfully omitted from the Brumos Racing No. 59 Porsche-Riley driving team lineup described in the previous post (Thanks, Hurley!).

"Thanks" also to an anonymous but sharp-eyed reader, who caught the previous post's incorrect reference to Michael Shank Racing's 2006 second-place Rolex 24 finish. MSR's No. 60 (Ozz Negri, Mark Patterson, AJ Allmendinger, Justin Wilson) finished second alright, but it was with Lexus power and not as stated.