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
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