SWEET HOME, ALABAMA

Sportscar racing in Alabama has some historical roots that take it back father in time than many might quickly recognize, reaching all the way back to a 1969 International Motor Sports Association race event just east of Birmingham.

“It was our second race,” recalled IMSA founder and current Grand-Am Commissioner John Bishop earlier this week from his home near Ocala, Fla.

The “Alabama International Sedan” race was a part of IMSA’s second-ever race weekend and took place on a track that operationally was barely into its second month, after hatching years earlier in a nearby Anniston, Ala., coffee shop.

The track being highly controversial from its beginning, such had little to do with its hosting a bunch of “sporty cars” in what today is typically considered “NASCAR Country.”

“The press and people there treated us really well and we actually had more people in the stands than we did at our first race (months earlier) at Pocono,” Bishop recalled. “After having the welcome mat all but pulled from beneath us at Pocono, we were the beneficiaries of some real southern hospitality. It was great.”

Perhaps even more obscure than the race in history’s consciousness was the International Sedan race’s winning driver, Gaston Andrey of Framingham, Mass. – even though that driver’s career would eventually stretch into five different decades.

Primarily a participant in Sports Car Club of America events, Andrey’s Alfa Romero Giulia GTA was among the seven surviving cars of the 22 starting the Nov. 9, 1969, 80-mile contest over the oval and 9-turn infield portion of 4-mile road course that in 1989 was renamed Talladega Superspeedway.

“Like Andrey, there were a lot of really good drivers, if not great drivers, in that race,” Bishop said.

While a look at that race’s entrant list might not ring many big-time bells - except perhaps “Famous Amos” Johnson who later became synonymous with “Team Highball” - two particular names just downright jump out at the reader:  Bill France Sr. (yep, aka “Big Bill”) and Bill France Jr., (left) who raced their respective Ford Cortina Mk. 2 GTs to 17^th and ninth-place finishes after qualifying 14^th and 12^th.

According to newspaper accounts of the race, France Sr. had advanced smartly through the field and was running in the top five when he went off course, after which he didn’t return.

“A mid-Atlantic-area based tuner got a whole load of Ford Cortinas that had gotten smashed up on a cargo ship on the way over from England,” Bishop said. “He got them at a good price and fixed some of them up. Bill Sr. and Bill raced a couple them as a lark. You know, there’s a lot of racing found in that France-family gene pool.”

In all, IMSA held eight race weekends over a nine-year period at Talladega, competing in which were the likes of Bob Akin, Don and Bill Whittington, Bob Bondurant, John Paul, Hurley Haywood, Gianpiero Moretti, Mike Keyser, Hans Stuck, Sam Posey, Al Holbert, Johnny Rutherford and still others.

The last IMSA-sanctioned Talladega race was won by Peter Gregg, who co-drove a 935/930 with some guy named Brad Frisselle (yep, father to Burt and Brian) in the 1978 6 Hours Of Talladega.

“Ah, Talladega. That was the place where they once wouldn’t allow women in the garages and pits!” Brad Frisselle once recalled, adding that a special infield chain-link fence compound, made especially for racer’s wives and girlfriends, was once found in the track’s infield.

No, next weekend’s race at Barber Motorsports Park won’t have a similar “special place” for participants’ wives and girlfriends - such being a good thing because, if nothing else, some of the drivers today bring husbands and boyfriends.

 

GRAND-AM SHOULD’VE INSTEAD BUSTED AUBERLEN AND HAND

In the wake of Turner Motorsport’s No. 94 BMW M6 driving from worst (18^th in GT) to near-first (5^th in GT), improving by 13 spots and picking up “The Best Start-Finish Award” at the Mar. 6 Grand Prix of Miami, it occurs the best way for a sanctioning body to establish a race car’s capability isn’t through track test days, chassis or engine dynamometers.

A surefire, never-miss means to learn of a race car’s true capability is to make sure the car is sent to a race grid’s rear. Possibly even resorting to some rules-related-infraction pretext (not that the Grand-Am officiating crew would ever do such a thing) by drumming up anything from “Golly gee, I see your body is 1/1000^th of a millimeter too wide” to “Darn it, the widget that’s attached to the gadget hasn’t been properly homologated as yet.”

Oh, and then alternately put Bill Auberlen and Joey Hand in the driver’s seat (as did a wise Paul Dalla Lana at Homestead-Miami Speedway) because the two drivers for the most part find sandbagging as alien as does Hand standard sunglass frames or Auberlen lily white skin.

“I don’t get it,” Auberlen once said years ago of sandbagging while undertaking a torture treatment – otherwise known as a “regional aircraft” flight (a conveyance which especially over 60-minutes duration stands on its head the idea that prisoners be accorded humane treatment in this country, as affirmed by the Constitution, Supreme Court rulings and Congressional action. As for any reader taking issue with this writer’s contention which equates “regional” airline travel with a prison: sometime in midflight request a parachute, an open door and then see what happens – especially if seated next to someone like Boris Said).

A regional aircraft’s plus side: adjoining-seat passengers get personal, regardless of one’s possible wishes to the contrary.

“I know one way to race and that’s as hard and as fast as I can; keep the car on the track; don’t hurt it but always, always try as hard as possible to drive as fast as you can,” Auberlen insisted and which, lacking any proof whatsoever to the contrary, has lived.

Hand (far left), today having advanced his driving skills by light years beyond his past “gentleman driver” days, most likely learned “Auberlen’s Racing Law No. 1” when the two raced, though mostly in separate cars, under the Tom Milner PTG BMW banner during the Rolex Series’ 2004-2005 seasons.

Milner’s teams, having stout cars and drivers, were kicking booty from here to forever when, for political reasons, Milner separated Auberlen and Boris Said after 2004’s fifth race, pairing Justin Marks with the former and Hand with the latter.

Though the PTG teams would continue to dominate – winning 10 of 12 races by 2004’s end – it was an emotionally crushing move for Said and Auberlen, who at the end of that year’s Sahlen’s 6 Hours Of The Glen had scored four-straight wins and looked otherwise unstoppable, even with seven remaining races.

Tied at 373 points when 2004 drew to a close, Auberlen walked away with the awards banquet’s GT driving-crown trophy when respective pole-positions were figured into the mix, making for a bummed Said and Auberlen even today.

In 2005, with Said (near right, with Hand) gone from PTG and looking more toward NASCAR stock car racing (bringing in $976,603 in just nine races there, BTW), Tom Milner Jr. joined Auberlen, Hand and Marks in a season-long mix of driver combinations that produced three wins for each driver but during which PTG’s driver mixing wouldn’t allow a single car having teammates with three wins.

With three wins (one coming at Barber Motorsports Park with Marks) among his seven top-5 finishes, Hand finished fourth in the 2005 season-ending points compilation – two better than a next-highest 6^th for Milner Jr. – despite PTG altogether abandoning its Rolex Series GT program after that season’s next-to-last race. Interestingly, in that last season the three PTG teammates individually posted more wins than did the driving champion, Craig Stanton.

Given the Turner BMW team’s perceived strength in testing – a buzz about which was rampant even before the 2010 season began in earnest – it’s probable certain eyes held visions of the team replicating that of BMWs from seasons’ past.

The team hasn’t done a thing to still those concerns, either. So, without winning or finishing any better than eighth place thus far in 2010, Turner’s Prep 2 BMW officially gets a tachometer that pegs at 7,000 rpm and 5-speed gearbox.

Probably would’ve been best to instead ban Auberlen and Hand, though.

You can watch the Turner crew as they comply with the new rules, live from Amesbury, Mass., apparently, lacking a microphone to go with the Web cam. It might’ve been interesting to learn their thoughts.

Later,

DC

 

 

Gratuitous Patrick Dempsey picture (Homestead-Miami Speedway, 2010, while Dempsey Racing team car No. 41 drivers James Gue and Leh Keen were winning, BTW)

SCOTT’s HALFWAY MARK

 

Taking a cross-country trip in May 1984, from his native California and stepping up from a racing comfort zone that three years earlier produced a Professional Karting Association World title, 24-year-old Scott Donald Pruett teamed with co-driver Paul Lewis in that day’s Midway Monster (Mazda RX-7, believe it or not) for a 500-kilometer race at Charlotte Motor Speedway (later known as “Lowe’s Motor Speedway” and, well, “Charlotte Motor Speedway,” again, sometime or other) at the end of which he’d finish 19^th after starting 32^nd.

After a months-long layoff Pruett would race his second professional sportscar and his final race of the 1984 IMSA season in his native California at Sears Point Raceway. In an August show that split a 15-car GTP field and a 30-car GTO/GTU field into separate races, Pruett drove a (Phil) Conte Racing Mazda RX-7 GTU to a 9^th-overall, sixth-in-class finish.

Over the ensuing years, Pruett returned to Charlotte time and again, driving a variety of cars ranging from an International Race of Champions Camaro to a NASCAR Sprint Cup stock car (then, “Winston Cup”).

Between 1984 and his birthday celebration today, Pruett has thus far scored eight professional sportscar racing championships (he’s currently leading the Grand-Am DP championship for a prospective ninth), among which are included two Grand-Am Daytona Prototype crowns won with two different co-drivers, Max Papis and Memo Rojas (respectively in 2004 and 2008), and in the pursuit of which he has yet to finish worse than second.

Outside of his Daytona Prototype championships, Pruett has won championships in SCCA Trans-Am (1987, 1994, 2003); IMSA GTO (1986, 1988); IMSA GT Endurance Championship (1986) and a 1981 Professional Karting Association World title (with a host of “minor” titles along the way).

Here’s what longtime racing foe and, like Pruett, a still-racing Jack Baldwin (at right) had to say about what one newspaper writer once called the “fair-haired boy” of IMSA:

“The little brat was not going to win. The great Scott Pruett was not going to win. So when I passed him, he knocked me out of the driver's championship.''

(Well, a complimentary quote wasn’t intimated.)

Baldwin’s thoughts erupted (Jack, it means “forcefully ejected” which in-turn means, “blew up”) after that 1986 IMSA Columbus GTO race - which Willy T. Ribbs won - one of a series of knockdown, drag-out fights occurring over multiple season between Pruett and Ribbs but into which others, like Baldwin, were inextricably sucked.

Fought at the 1986 season’s next-to-last race at Columbus, Ohio, while Pruett and Baldwin were running first and third in that year’s IMSA GTO championship race, Ribbs had earlier that season set the tone when, as a backmarker in Miami, he on the race’s last lap punted a leading Pruett which, in turn, opened a wide-open winning door for one Jack Baldwin – who gleefully skated through and furthermore later added, “I ain’t returning the winner’s check! Are you crazy!?”

Fined $2,000 by IMSA for his Miami punt of Pruett, another $1,500 was added for the Columbus incident and for which Pruett was likewise fined. While one might think Baldwin to have been an innocent bystander at Columbus, IMSA having also fined him $1,500 there suggests some level of culpability. (Jack, that means, “they thought you had something to do with it.”).

The Pruett-Ribbs pushing, shoving and door-handle-banging came to a head, so to speak, at Portland in 1987 after the Purolator 300k IMSA GTO/GTU race. By that time driving a Toyota Celica for Dan Gurney, Willy T. (that’s what EVERYONE, ‘ceptin’ probably his momma, called him at the time) strolled up to Pruett’s street ride as it passed through the paddock. According to more than a few folks on hand, a shotgun-riding Pruett (no, Jack, in a car seat; not straddling a 12-gauge), with spouse Judy in his lap, saw Ribbs approach, rolled down the window to congratulate the driver’s second-place finish whereupon at great speed a fist entered the passenger compartment (that would be from the car’s “outside to inside,” Jack).

Not one for anymore getting too terribly mired in details of events because yours truly has grown to enjoy regular nap times, the reader should Google or, perhaps more appropriately, “Bing” the rest of the story. Surely it’s out there, somewhere. Let’s just add, though, “accounts differ.”

Given contemplation, however, one might see from whence still-existing acrimony between those named “Gurney” and “Pruett” still burns deep in present-day bellies after Ribbs’ team owner, Dan Gurney, in the wake of Portland reportedly smiled and said something along the lines of, “Oops.” (That would mean . . . oh, never mind, Jack.)

I tangentially digressed.

Just two short years after his 1984 Charlotte race Pruett already was a busy driver, first scoring a ride with Jack Roush’s already much-feared Ford team in IMSA and, at about mid-season, joined Roush’s SCCA Trans-Am effort, which provided Pruett a Mercury Capri for his first race in that series (while teammate Pete Halsmer had a much cooler Merkur XR4Ti rocket ship).

Pruett was about midway through nailing down his first IMSA and sportscar championship when he returned to Charlotte in 1986 to team with Bruce Jenner in a Jack Roush Ford Mustang GTO (yes, Jack, the former Olympian Decathlon winner; surely you remember him because you finished third to Jenner’s second – by 16 points – in the ’86 GTO championship run).

Much like 1984, when Pruett first raced in Charlotte and ran his second IMSA race at Sears Point, Pruett in 1986 would also have a following race in California, only it was the next day. So after closing the race in third, Pruett quickly went from CMS to an awaiting overnight plane ride so as to allow sufficient time for the debut SCCA Trans-Am driver to secure his $50 club membership – without which he wouldn’t later that day be allowed to compete at Riverside Raceway.

Ironically driving an already proven chassis which Willy T drove to five wins in 1985, an otherwise non-qualifying Pruett started 31^st and finished first, followed by Halsmer in second; Chris Kneifel in third (also a Roush Mercury Capri).

Today, one pretty much has the feeling that Pruett, if for whatever reason he were to be sent to a Daytona Prototype grid’s rear, would certainly try to do the same thing and probably accomplish it, too.

In 1987, Pruett started his Rolex 24 winning role (no, Jack, I really meant “role” though the other woulda worked, too) by claiming his first win (in GTO; 7^th overall) with co-drivers Lyn St. James, Tom Gloy, Bill Elliott and a team owner named Roush who, of course, fielded a Ford (No. 11 Mustang). Pruett last won the 2008 Rolex 24 in the No. 01 TELMEX/Target Lexus-Riley DP with Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti and present day co-driver Memo Rojas (below).

Pruett, Rojas, Papis and Justin Wilson and their No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley this year finished second, 52.303 seconds behind the winning No. 9 Action Express Racing Porsche Cayenne V8-Riley of Joao Barbosa, Terry Borcheller, Mike Rockenfeller and Ryan Dalziel.

The team was leading at the end of the 22-hour when an undiagnosed chicane-area hiccup caused driver Justin Wilson to make a snap decision only moments later to steer the blue, white and red TELMEX/Target car into in the team’s Daytona International Speedway garage. Finding nothing amiss in hardly more than a minute’s passage, Pruett was sent back onto the track to close the race in a double-stint effort to regain the lost ground.

Arguably becoming the Rolex Sports Car Series’ best team since its 2004 debut, the TELMEX team knew if anyone was capable of returning the car to the point, Pruett was their guy to do it.

Five laps later while carrying a nearly full gas load, Pruett’s 232^nd lap behind the wheel since Saturday’s race start, Pruett on Lap 694 would turn the No. 01 team’s fastest race lap at a 1:41.06 – close to if not faster than any race lap he’d ever recorded at Daytona (including three runs in early 90’s TWR Jags).

Having raced no DP other than that fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, Pruett’s 24 Daytona Prototype victories – including his most recent at Homestead-Miami Speedway’s March 6, 2010, Grand Prix of Miami – ranks highest in that category and is 10 wins ahead of SunTrust Racing’s second-place Max Angelelli (14). Alex Gurney and co-driver Jon Fogarty are next, each having scored 12 wins accompanied by the other.

Between his first Rolex race and his most recent Pruett scored class and overall wins while driving four different classes of cars, in: 1988, teamed for first-in-GT0-class (10^th overall) with Paul Miller, Bobby Akin Jr, Pete Halsmer in a Jack Roush Merkur XR4Ti; 1989, Pruett would finish 58^th overall with Paul Gentilozzi in a No. 27 Not-Your-Father’s Rocketsports Oldsmobile; 1990, again teamed with Roush to drive a No. 11 Mercury XR-7 Cougar to 8^th-place with Dorsey Schroeder, Max Jones, Mark Martin and Robert Lappalainen; 1991, finished 30^th overall in the No. 2 Tom Walkinshaw Racing Jaguar XJR-12 GTP with Davy Jones, Derek Warwick and Raul Boesel ; 1992, drove another TWR Jaguar, finishing first in GTP/ second overall (yep, that’s correct) in the No. 2 XJR-12D Group-C with Davy Jones, David Brabham and Scott Goodyear; 1993, a third TWR Jag run in the 10^th-place Group-C No. 2 XJR-12-D with just Jones and Goodyear; 1994, first-place overall and GTS class, driving a Cunningham Racing No. 76 Nissan 300ZX with Paul Gentilozzi, Butch Leitzinger and Steve Millen; (after skipping a few years) 1998, finished 39^th in the No. 5 Panoz-Visteon Racing Panoz GTR with co-drivers Andy Wallace, Raul Boesel and Doc Bundy; 2001, drove again with Paul Gentilozzi, John Miller and Anthony Lazzaro in the No. 5 Saleen SR-7; 2002; finished first in GTS/5^th overall in a No. 3 Rocketsports Jaguar XJR with Michael Lauer, Brian Simo and (oh, yes) Gentilozzi; 2003, off; 2004, finished 10^th in CGRwF(yJ)S No. 01 Lexus-Riley with Max Papis, Scott Dixon and Jimmy Morales; 2005, 7^th-place in CGRwF(yJ)S No. 01 with Ryan Briscoe and full-season partner Luis Diaz; 2006, 39^th in (c’mon, you know) No. 01 Lexus-Riley with Luis Diaz and Max Papis; 2007, first overall with Juan Pablo and Salvador Duran in TELMEX/Target No. 01 Lexus-Riley.

Pruett came to the Rolex Sports Car Series with Chip Ganassi Racing w/ Felix (y José) Sabates in 2004 and most everyone in the paddock thought the team out of the box would be the most formidable yet seen in the series. They were correct, too, with respect to accomplishments and continuity from the get-go.

Together with spouse Judy and offspring Lauren, Taylor and Cameron, when not racing and writing their co-authored Word Weaver book series, Pruett loves to play in North California’s Wine Country dirt, striving to find that perfect grape that’ll match that perfect line he’ll admit having yet to find.

Later,

DC

AND THE NUMBERS SAY . . .

 

With 54 races to its credit, Riley Technologies’ MkXI No. 001 chassis is at the top of the Daytona Prototype class – at least, as of the end of 2009 season.

No. 001 didn’t have much wiggle room, given that Riley chassis No. 004 at the time followed closely behind with 53 starts through the end of last year’s 12-race Daytona Prototype schedule.

In third and fourth places as the “most-raced chassis” are Riley chassis Nos. 026 and 005, respectively posting 49 and 48 starts. Tied for fifth place’s 47 starts are Doran Engineering’s JE4 No. 003 and FABCAR FDSC/03 No. 002.

The most frequently raced DP chassis officially started its life at the 2004 Rolex 24 At Daytona as the No. 01 CompUSA Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Lexus-powered DP – all but thrown together during the two months preceding the famous twice-around-the-clock race, held annually at Daytona International Speedway.

Though the No. 001 Riley would win four 2004-season races and by season’s end also help claim a championship for drivers Scott Pruett and Max Papis, it was all but retired at the end of the 2004 season – destined for but one final Ganassi-team race before leaving the stable.

Target Chip Ganassi Racing IRL drivers Darren Manning and Scott Dixon teamed with Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Casey Mears to drive what had become the No. 03 Target Lexus-Riley DP to a sixth-place finish in the 2005 Rolex 24.

Relegated to backup status for the remainder of the 2005 season, it was acquired at the start of the 2006 season by Mark Wilkins and readied by Canadian-based AIM for its debut in the mid-summer Brumos 250 on the 3.56-mile DIS road course. In an inauspicious start, Canadians Wilkins and James Hinchcliffe finished 21^st in the No. 61 Lexus-powered Riley.

Staying with Lexus for the car’s next 14 races spread over the remainder of 2006 and through the 2007 seasons, Ford-power was placed in the car’s engine bay for the start of the 2008 season, during which Wilkins and Brian Frisselle teamed to claim 10 top-10 finishes, winning two races and finishing fifth in 2008 DP driver championship points.

Still bearing the No. 001 Riley plate, AIM Autosport’s Ford-powered No. 61 arrived for today’s Grand Prix of Miami with new sponsor Pacific Mobile’s hot blue/white paint job. Wilkins, paired in 2009 with Burt Frisselle, older brother of Brian, qualified the car seventh in the 35-car field.

In the wake of Papis’ departure following the 2004 season, Ganassi paired defending champion Pruett with Mexican Luis Diaz for 2005 in Riley Technologies chassis No. 004, which months before began its racing life in the 2004-season finale at California Raceway (now “Auto Club Speedway”) with Scott Dixon and Darren Manning droving the No. 8 CompUSA Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Lexus-Riley to a third-place finish.

After its debut at the Rolex 24 on 5-6 Feb., 2005, as the No. 01 CompUSA Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Lexus-Riley – with Ryan Briscoe joining the endurance team – Diaz and Pruett later drove the car through the 25 June, 2006, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course race, after which the team, having only four days between races, opted to employ Riley chassis No. 002 chassis at the 29 June, 2006, Brumos 250 at Daytona International Speedway.

The No. 002 Riley chassis continued as the No. 01 CompUSA Chip Ganassi with Felix Sabates Lexus-Riley until the end of the 2006 season, with the team returning to the No. 004 Riley chassis at the 2007 Rolex 24 and at the end of which Pruett, Juan Pablo Montoya and Salvador Duran would capture a set of Rolex Daytona watches.

Following a second-place driving championship points finish for Pruett at the 2007-season’s end, No. 004 was scheduled for one final race to run before a retirement from frontline duty – yet before which produced another set of Rolex Daytona “timepieces” (as Rolex would prefer) at the 2008 Rolex 24 at Daytona for drivers Pruett, Memo Rojas, Montoya and Dario Franchitti.

Switching afterward to Riley chassis No. 010 – which began its life with a first-place finish at the 2008-season’s second race at Homestead-Miami Raceway – “Good Ol’ No. 004” would be called back to duty after Pruett abruptly, severally and completely ended Riley MkXI chassis No. 010’s use on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008, in death-defying fashion during a promoter’s test day at the newly opened New Jersey Motorsports Park.

Having at the time all but completely wrapped up the 2008 driving championship, Pruett and Rojas could’ve waited to nail the championship by merely starting the next but season-ending race at Tooele, Utah’s Miller Motorsports Park. Instead – in a call made by Pruett – the TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix (y José) Sabates team put forth a sustained effort to race at New Jersey’s new Thunderbolt Raceway.

Leaving Thursday evening on a run to the team’s Indianapolis shop, team members arrived to dump what remained of Riley chassis No. 010 into their curbside recycling bin, removed No. 004 from mothballs, loaded it on the TELEX trailer and headed back to Millville, N.J., arriving in time for some Saturday practice beforehand. The following day, Pruett, Rojas and No. 004 finished ninth.

Riley Mk XI chassis No. 004 has since been Pruett, Rojas and the No. 01 TELMEX team’s mainstay, even having been fitted with a BMW engine for the 2010 season after previously carrying a Lexus through 53 races at the end of the 2009 season.

After AIM Autosport’s decision to sit out the 2010 Rolex 24 (but for that race lending regular-season drivers Wilkins and Frisselle to Michael Shank Racing’s No. 60 Crown Royal Ford-Riley), with today’s start of the Grand Prix of Miami in Homestead, Riley MkXI chassis Nos. 001 and 004 have each compiled 55 races and together stand tied as the most-raced Daytona Prototype chassis.

If at the dawn of Daytona Prototype racing the Rolex Sports Car Series’ main mission was to provide cost-effective racing, it has met that goal, said one of the series’ most frequent competitors.

“Insofar as the cost of ownership is concerned, one shouldn’t look at the up-front cost of a race car as much as what that car costs over time, as measured by the number of races in which it competes,” said Target Chip Ganassi Racing director Mike Hull, who since the 1990’s has overseen the organization’s successful IndyCar Series program and, since beginning Rolex Series competition in 2004, the organization’s similarly successful Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype program.

“If getting the most you can from a car is the barometer used to measure cost effectiveness, then Grand-Am is certainly meeting its goal,” Hull added.

Now in its eighth season of competition, 20 individual DP chassis, each having raced a minimum of 30-or-more races, have through the 2009 season’s conclusion logged a combined 840 races since the class’ debut at the 2003 Rolex 24 At Daytona. (Omitted from the above were totals coming from an additional 22 DP chassis, each having recorded between 20 and 29 races.)

DP CHASSIS HAVING MORE THAN 30 STARTS

(NOTE: As of Oct. 31, 2009; Arranged as greatest to fewest number of races, overall and individually; “Entrants” are shown as officially recorded by Grand-Am)

54 - Riley MkXI No. 001 (No. 61 AIM Autosport, 41; No. 01 CompUSA Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 12; No. 03 Target Chip Ganassi with Felix Sabates, 1)

53 - Riley MkXI No. 004 (No. 01 TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 29; No. 01 CompUSA Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 24)

49 - Riley MkXI No. 026 (No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing, 26; No. 99 Bob Stallings/Riley-Matthews, 14; GAINSCO/Blackhawk Racing, 9)

48 - Riley MkXI No. 005 (No. 6 Michael Shank Racing, 28; No. 6 Playboy Racing/Mears-Lexus-Riley, 7; No. 9 Mears Motorcoach/SpeedSource, 5; No. 6 Graydon Elliott Fusion Racing with MSR, 4; Michael Shank Racing/Mears Motorcoach, 2; No. 22 Alegra Motorsports, 2)

47 - Doran JE4 No. 003 (No. 77 Feeds the Need/Doran Racing, 21; No. 77 Doran Racing, 14; No. 6 Michael Shank Racing, 12)

47 - FABCAR FDSC/03 No. 002 (No. 09 Spirit of Daytona Racing, 17; No. 58 Brumos Racing, 12; No. 59 Brumos Racing 59, 12; No. 58 Red Bull - Brumos - Goodyear - Kendall, 4; No, 45 Gunnar Racing, 1; No. 29 Brumos Racing, 1)

46 - Riley MkXI No. 002 (No. 02 CompUSA Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 11; No. 02 New Century Mortgage Chip Ganassi racing with Felix Sabates, 14; No. 19 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 11; No. 01 CompUSA Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 5; No. 02 Target Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 3; No. 02 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 1; No. 02 Waste Management Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 1)

45 - Riley MkXI No. 014 (No. 75 Krohn Racing, 15; No. 66 Krohn Racing/TRG, 14; No. 76 Krohn Racing 76, 13; No. 22 Alegra Motorsports, 3

44 - Riley MkXI No. 011 (No. 75 Krohn Racing, 15; No. 67 Krohn Racing/TRG, 14; No. 76 Krohn Racing 76, 13; No. 76 Krohn Racing, 1; No. 51 AIM Autosport, 1)

42 - Riley MkXI No. 030 (No. 59 Brumos Porsche, 23; No. 59 Brumos Porsche/Kendall, 17; No. 59 Brumos Racing 59, 2)

40- Riley MkXI No. 025 (No. 11 SAMAX, 15; No. 11 CITGO Racing by SAMAX, 9; No. 45 Orbit Racing, 7; No. 2 SAMAX, 6; No. 2 SAMAX-BMW, 2; No. 45 Victory Junction-Orbit Racing, 1

39 - Crawford DP03 No. 002 (all Howard-Boss Motorsports

39 - Crawford DP03 No. 003 (entrant was Spirit of Daytona Racing, alone, but one car wore No. 07 while the rest wore No. 09)

39 - Doran JE4 No. 004 (No. 81 Rx.com/G&W Motorsports, 11; No. 8 Rx.com/Synergy Racing, 15; No. 8 Synergy Racing, 12; No. 8 EMC Mechanical/Synergy Racing

39 - Riley MkXI No. 003 (No. 3 Southard Motorsports, 27; No. 10 SunTrust Racing, 12)

37 - FABCAR FDSC/03 No. 001 (No. 59 Brumos Racing 59, 26; Brumos - Goodyear - Kendall, 11)

35 - Doran JE4 No. 002 (All wore No. 54 under entrants Kodak-Bell Motorsports, 21; Bell Motorsports, 14).

34 - Crawford DP03 No. 009 (Always under No. 23, the car's entrant primarily was "Alex Job Racing," but through three different entities: Alex Job Racing, 21; Alex Job Racing/Emory Motorsports, 12; 10th and M Seafoods Alaska, 1)

32 - Riley MkXI No. 027 (Luggage Express Team Sigalsport BMW, 14; Rum Bum Racing, 12; Sigalsport BMW, 4; Sigalsport, 2

31 - Riley MkXI No. 021 (No. 10 SunTrust Racing, 28; No. 5 Beyer Racing, 2; No. 9 Penske-Taylor Racing, 1)

Later,

DC

THE POWER OF THINGS LEFT UNSAID

 

When racing within NASCAR and insofar as engines are concerned, race teams and their drivers tend toward manufacturer continuity but such hasn’t been the case with Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, which before 2009 exclusively used Dodge engines on the stock car side and Lexus/Toyota engines in the sports car side’s TELMEX Riley (not to mention Honda on the Target Chip Ganassi Racing IRL side but, then again, Izod IndyCar Series teams can’t use anything but Honda – or single chassis, gearbox and tire manufacturers, for that matter).

Adopting Chevrolets in the wake of Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix (no José) Sabates’ 2009 merger with Dale Earnhardt Inc. and resulting in Ganassi Earnhardt Racing with Felix (y quizás José) Sabates, it was somewhat of a surprise for some to see Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix (y por cierto José) Sabates’ adopt Steve Dinan’s BMW engine for 2010 Rolex Series competition after Toyota Racing Development and their U.S. Lexus dealers in 2009 altogether pulled support from a program and team which since its 2004 inception delivered multiple driving, team and manufacturer championships.

Behind the scenes, the idea of the TELMEX team turning to Chevrolet-power for its 2010 Daytona Prototype program was all but immediately shot down due to observations which surmised the “GM” engine as being down on raw power as compared to other power plants – a point-of-view likewise underscored by competitors who already have abandoned the longtime U.S. maker for other, more robust engines.

In fat times Chevrolet quite literally was able to supply power and buy allegiance with its largesse – whether outright cash transfers or through “barters” for Bowtie decals. In the meantime, everyone else paid for their engines. Yes, even Ganassi.

One can just imagine the howls loosed in the wake of the above claim. Yet, years of everyone else in the paddock claiming the contrary no more make such true than did the sheer number of people who once claimed the world flat, infectious diseases incurable or that only birds would ever fly.

TRD was never in the business not to make money – a fact reinforced at last season’s end when it withdrew from supporting even Ganassi – and likely was at the roots of its rarely securing more than four or five teams in an average Daytona Prototype field even at its highpoint. Lexus/Toyota, once the undisputed king of the DP engine bays, in 2009 dwindled to but two such instances – one of those being only a single Rolex 24 At Daytona entry.

Absent Chevrolet’s onetime strongest point of supplanting otherwise very large ledger entries, teams started gravitating toward engines having the greater available power. As one of the earliest, top-team switchers said a couple of seasons back, “If I’m going to have to pay for engines, I’m going to get the strongest possible because a former business equation has at this point become a purely competitive decision. If Chevrolet produces an engine having comparable power, then I’d go with it but, frankly, it doesn’t at present.”

Of course, no engine manufacturer on Earth isn’t aware of the racer’s favorite equation, “MP=W,” even if somewhat debatable (heck, even Einstein’s famous but non-Noble-winning E=MC² still is under considerable debate within the physics community because it doesn’t “add up” on at least a couple of fronts). (Oh! MP=W? More Power equals Wins.)

When 19 Daytona Prototypes in 2006 took to Homestead-Miami Speedway’s 2.3-mile, 11-turn road course, fully half of that field was GM-powered. This weekend: only one car of the 15 entered.

Now down to an unshakably loyal but lone GAINSCO Bob Stallings Racing entry, Chevrolet’s beginning to know how TRD must’ve felt.

REMEMBER WHEN the GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing team went through their Rolex 24 at Daytona thrash? It was the one caused after Jimmie Johnson was forced from Daytona International Speedway’s infield road course at 150 mph during a practice lap.

Under consideration early in the “What’ll We Do Now?” aftermath, entertained was the possible overnight shipment from Dallas of Bob Stallings Racing’s back-up Riley Daytona Prototype.

Last raced as the No. 98 by Jimmy Vasser and Christiano da Matta at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in May 2008, the car bear’s Riley Technologies chassis No. 006 - which is among the least-used Riley Daytona Prototype chassis currently around.

Raced all of 12 times, it was most often raced by Michael Shank Racing, as its No. 60 beginning in the May 2005, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca race. Lexus was in the engine bay at the time.

The car first raced bearing the No. 74 Robinson Racing livery and would through the first half of its life (thus far) use only Lexus engines. Such would change when Robinson Racing came back for another Rolex 24 go, but instead the second (and, later, a third) time using Pontiac power as its engine of choice. SAMAX twice raced the chassis with Pontiac engines. With BMW in the engine bay, Tuttle Team Racing rounded out “the other guys” who would race chassis 006 before going to Bob Stallings’ shop – it’s last stop, as of now.

The most-raced chassis through the end of the 2009 season?

Take a guess, or two.

Later,

DC