“Don’t Come Around Here No More”

 

DAYTONA BEACH – As the 49th Rolex 24 At Daytona approached its end at Daytona International Speedway, wishing to be among and desiring to convey heartfelt congratulations to those who were just about to achieve one of motorsports’ most historic moments, the World Famous Rolex Sports Car Series Reporter arrived Sunday afternoon at the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix (y José) Sabates’ Rolex 24 pit-road compound at Daytona International Speedway.

Reaching to part and pass through an entryway of white tarpaulins which served to sheath the TELMEX/Target double-stall pits from the rest of the world, suddenly stepping into and blocking the reporter’s path was a presumably official Ganassi Gate Guard or, simply, GGG.

“Who are you?” the GGG huffed to the suddenly Former World Famous Rolex Sports Car Series Reporter, who was as quickly dethroned as he had been self-coronated only moments before.

The reporter quickly grasped a lanyard hanging from around his neck. Having numbers approaching three, at its bottom were that which could ward off the most evil of security spirits: hard cards.

Thrusting them forward toward the GGG at shoulder height while making like Vanna White turning letters on “Wheel of Fortune,” the now-former world famous reporter displayed each card, especially noting the consistency of name and image found on each.

“No! Who are you with?” said the ever more impatient GGG, now defensively positioned in the doorway, as would a nightclub bouncer (such, um, “profession” easily recognized by the former world-famous scribe who once “bounced” in a country western honky-tonk – mud, blood and beer being a regular feature of which, no less – so as to pay his way through the pillars of higher education).

The scribe, after looking left and right over respective shoulders, answered, “No one. I’m alone.”

“No, I SAID, ‘Who are you with?’ Who do you know?” said the now wholly impatient castle-gate guard, snarling with such ferocity that one began to think foam at the mouth would soon follow.

The scribe sensed a sudden, critical need of carefully responding to the gatekeeper’s inquiry because access to the inner sanctum clearly hinged on the response.

The reporter said to hisownself, “Self, what about dropping‘President Obama’s name? That might work.’”

“Naw, even though Obama was born in Pennsylvania,” the reporter answered himself, “I doubt it’d carry much weight. Besides, my knowing ‘Oh-Bo’ (as in, “You don’t know Didley”) probably was a stretch, anyway.”

“Tom Jefferson,” the reporter said aloud to the gatekeeper, repeating his full name, “Thomas Jefferson.”

Who wouldn’t “know” Jefferson, right?

A United States founding father; principal “Declaration of Independence” author; ambassador to France; third U.S. president; second U.S. vice-president; the first U.S. Secretary of State; and, governor of Virginia.

Once, when welcoming a large group of Nobel laureates to the White House, President John F. Kennedy said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

The scribe, certain of victory and seeing the gatekeeper’s parting lips, shifted his weight forward as he began his triumphant stroll into the magical place within.

An outwardly thrust arm suddenly again blocked the reporter’s path.

“Who!?” the foaming gatekeeper half spit, half barked.

Just as did the Wizard of Oz’s Emerald City Doorkeeper say to Dorothy, The Cowardly Lion, Tin Man and Ray Bolger, “You can’t come in here!”

Only, the GGG didn’t have a portal to close.

Peering through areas which hadn’t been obscured from the reporter’s gaze were Judy and Maureen Pruett; Floyd Ganassi Jr.; Felix y mi amigo especiales José Sabates; Carlos Slim Domit; Mike and Melinda Hull; Memo Rojas; Tim Keene; Kent Holden; Tyler Rees; Kelby Kraus and at least a few others with whom the once world-famous reporter at times has partied and in places at which the GGG could only imagine.

All the reporter wished to do was shake the hand of each, give ‘em each a pat on the back, and offer a “Well done!”

“There’s never any point in arguing with people at the upper end of the gene pool,” the dejected nobody said to himself as he turned and walked away.

Over the soon-to-fade din emitted by cars that race, the Ganassi Gate Guard could be heard chanting the Wicked Witch of The East’s winged-monkey cheer, “Oh-re-oh; OH---RE-OH! Oh-re-oh; OH---RE-OH! O-re-o! OREO!”

Now, some sleep.

Later,

DC

TEN YEARS AFTER

 

As fast as newswires and voices on the wind could carry it on Oct. 17, 2000, the world learned, some might say “shocked,” when it was announced that Dale Earnhardt and son Dale Earnhardt Jr. would team in a Corvette C5.R with driver Andy Pilgrim for the Feb. 3-4, 2001, Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Before the announcement and even though in the wake of yet another outstanding Earnhardt performance the previous day at Talladega Superspeedway – where the seven-time Cup champion driver had simultaneously emerged from 18th place and the midst of another “Big One” to claim his 10th win on the 2.66-mile tri-oval – skeptical were some of the media members gathered in Earnhardt’s (Richard Childress Racing) Mooresville, N.C., race shop for that announcement.

Though the Talladega win allowed Earnhardt to advance into second place in the (then) Winston Cup championship standings, many in attendance had beforehand expected the “special” announcement would be little more than another exploitable means by which the team could extol the virtues of one or more sponsors.

Besides, with only four races remaining in the season and 210 points to overcome at the time, it seemed improbable anyone would seriously suggest Earnhardt might wrestle the Winston Cup championship from the grasp of points leader Bobby Labonte.

Still, when Earnhardt “invited” . . .

As the media dutifully gathered – some grumbling because of a lost day off – most of those who had returned in time from Talladega wondered what possibly could be so important, whatever it may be, that it couldn’t have awaited the weekend’s Rockingham race.

Walking through the designated meeting room doors would only add to reporters’ curiosity, if not confusion.

Up front and “onstage” in the glare of video lights as each blazed to life, Pilgrim was feeling a bit uncomfortable.

As though a fish fresh out of water, Pilgrim felt the hot sting of reporters’ glares boring through him, each wondering, “Who is this guy and what is he doing here?”

It wasn’t so much that Pilgrim was at all unfamiliar or uncomfortable with being in the limelight. After all, he was an accomplished sportscar driver who’d only weeks earlier won his race class at Petite Le Mans with what had already been tagged as one of sportscar racing’s greatest-ever, late-race, do-or-die passes.

Sitting there, though, Pilgrim not only was sitting in odd, if not foreign territory in the heart of stock-car country, he was also in the race shop of possibly the all-time, greatest-ever NASCAR driver: Dale Earnhardt.

Pilgrim might as well have been sitting in the middle of Alamogordo, New Mexico’s Ground Zero atomic test site.

“Then I hear this really loud voice,” Pilgrim later recounted.

“’Where's Andy!? Where’s Andy Pilgrim!?’

“And just about the same time, here comes Dale, wearing his cowboy boots, jeans, long-sleeved shirt, this huge grin on his face and he says, ‘Man, that was some pass! We're gonna have us some fun now!’”

If there’s anything a public-relations type dislikes most it’s losing control of a “media event” but, of course, there was no controlling Earnhardt. Still, at an obvious loss were at least some of the corporate types on hand who’d not previously, personally experienced Earnhardt at his best.

Earnhardt had only just warmed up.

“Then he turns to the reporters,” Pilgrim continued, “and says to them, ‘Did you see this guy make that pass!?’ and he went on about how he’d been watching SPEED and how I’d put him on the edge of his chair as he watched it.”

When a reporter suddenly shoe-horned a Talladega question, Earnhardt quickly responded.

“I don't want to talk about Talladega. I want to talk about the Corvette. This is the Dale and Andy show, man.”

“He was so completely humble, warm and funny,” Pilgrim said, “I was totally at ease.”

“It was the first time I’d met him in person and it was a tremendous experience; one I’ll never forget.”

The endurance contest was to be held at the same Daytona International Speedway where Earnhardt had already demonstrated a strong penchant for winning, having in 21 (17 with RCR) seasons amassed 34 victories on the track’s 2.5-mile tri-oval, including the 1998 Daytona 500.

But with its 3.56-mile road course, DIS’s annual twice-around-the-clock Rolex 24 at Daytona was an altogether different beast.

The Earnhardt’s would have to get to know the Corvette as much as the team needed to learn about the Earnhardts – and quickly at that.

Further complicating the famous father and son duo’s need for getting up to Corvette racing speed was the little matter of paying attention to their day job, which was deep into the schedule’s penultimate month.

While that year’s Winston Cup championship likely was out of reach, “winning” wasn’t – and the Earnhardt’s weren’t about not at all trying.

"I'll probably know when it's time to retire when I'm racing for 31st instead of first in points,” Earnhardt said earlier that season in answer to a “retirement” question sparked by Dale Jr’s 2000-season move into a fulltime Cup ride.

Furthermore, even though referred to as the “off-season,” ahead lie unfulfilled sponsor commitments, NASCAR’s New York City Cup Series awards banquet and preparations for a following season. There really wasn’t much “off” in an off-season, anymore.

“Your obligations do crowd your schedule up a little more,” Earnhardt said. “Of course, everybody's schedule is pretty crowded this day and time. It's quite a juggling act to make it all to make it all happen and put it all together.”

Running hot and cold over the next four weeks, retreating from second to third place in points after Rockingham, Earnhardt would eventually reclaim the Cup championship’s runner-up spot.

After finishing second to race-winner Jerry Nadeau (Hendrick Motorsports) at the last race in the 2000 season at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Earnhardt already had turned his attention to a Sebring test later the same week in the Corvette.

“Come Daytona in February, we're going to be in the 24-hour race, Dale Jr. and myself. We're going to go down and test the car for the first time. It's going to be fun.”

Longtime friend, confidante and business associate Steve Crisp, who today heads Hendrick Motorsports’ Performance Group, fondly recalled that time.

“The whole time, he was like a kid in a candy store doing it,” Crisp said, “Though I don’t want to make it sound as though he was in it strictly for fun.

“Most folks seem to go to work every day because they have to. Big E did it because he wanted to. He had the most fun in life when he had a challenge, no matter if he was on a tractor on his farm or in a race car at Daytona.”

While many folks understood that Earnhardt loved to race, most stock car fans were stumped as to why the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champ would want to race a sporty car.

“Dale had a huge amount of respect for drivers who could jump back and forth from one kind of race car to another and it’s something he wanted to do, too. It was a challenge to him,” Crisp said.

Insofar as Earnhardt was concerned, “Well,” the driver would say one day in Daytona International Speedway’s old, cramped Benny Kahn Media Center, “it was the pass in the grass that did it for me.”

Most of those present immediately recalled Earnhardt’s grass-mowing tangle with Bill Elliott toward the end of 1987’s The Winston at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“What’s that got to do with sports cars?” asked a befuddled Charlotte Observer journalist, the late David Poole, who at the time sat directly across from the Daytona Beach News-Journal’s assigned media room seating.

“Not mine; Andy Pilgrim’s,” Earnhardt said with his best ‘gotcha grin.’

As if he had been there – or perhaps even channeling Pilgrim himself – Earnhardt with utter glee in his eyes launched into a vivid blow-by-blow account of Pilgrim’s pass on Oreca Dodge Viper driver Tommy Archer in the waning moments of the 2000 Petite Le Mans.

“Because they’d already won the Daytona 24, Sebring and over at Le Mans, the guys at Dodge had offered them (Viper team, Oreca) a bounty, something like $500,000, to beat ‘em in Atlanta,” Earnhardt said.

Plopping down in a chair next to Poole and recounting Pilgrim’s actions with only minutes to go in the race, Earnhardt’s hands suddenly were grasping and soon would begin turning an unseen steering wheel; his eyes glancing at a rear view mirror somewhere in mid-air.

“They were racing in Atlanta . . .,” Earnhardt said as he began recounting the story.

“Road Atlanta, not Hampton, Poole,” someone else sarcastically chimed directly at Poole, who gruffly responded, “I know what the hell he’s talking about.”

“. . . and Andy was way behind him (leading Viper driver Archer),” Earnhardt continued, hardly missing a beat.

“Andy got caught up and got behind him with four or five laps to go and figured he could out-brake him and then maybe pull him just enough down the straight to win,” Earnhardt said.

“He’s going right, he’s going left,” as an animated Earnhardt mimicked with hand movements.

“They’re going into the first turn, Andy fakes left and . . .” Earnhardt slams his boot to the floor, starts working his other boot up and down, turns his imaginary steering wheel hard to the right “. . . makes his move to the inside!”

Suddenly, no longer looking down an imaginary Corvette hood, Earnhardt intensely peers into the mid-air rearview mirror.

“Andy starts sliding in front of him (Archer), they touch! Andy’s in front but he can’t see anything but lights. They’re all over him. Filling the car up, Andy floors it but he ain’t pullin’ away. The lights are still all over him. He drives way too deep into the next turn, slides off into the grass! All four tires but he keeps his foot in it! He gets back on the track but the other car’s still there on his butt!”

Earnhardt suddenly falls completely silent, nearly motionless. Then, as if he’s no longer in the car, Earnhardt’s hands drop from the imaginary steering wheel and shifts slightly in his chair.

Silence follows. Total, dead, complete silence fills Benny Kahn as nearly everyone there is looking at Earnhardt with unblinking, unmoving eyes; waiting.

Some of those present knew the rest of the story because they, too, had seen “The Pass.” Most others there hadn’t. Everyone was wondering, though, why Earnhardt had gone stone, cold quiet.

Like a perfectly timed Abbott-and-Costello routine, suddenly slapping his thigh, laughing aloud and almost causing Poole to fall from his chair, Earnhardt yells, “It was a dadgum Audi that was behind him. Andy had run the damn Viper off in One,” and laughed to beat all.

Most everyone, at least those who knew the difference between an Audi and the Corvette, joined the laughter.

Earnhardt stood, pushed his chair aside, gave Poole a slap on the back and turned to walk out of Benny Kahn.

Pausing, Earnhardt turned back and said with a dead-serious, finger-pointing tone, “Now that’s a real race car driver for you. He didn’t care who it was behind him, he wasn’t going to let him get by. He just wanted to win. That’s the kind of fellow I’ll race with anytime!”

Almost forgotten, it wouldn’t be until years later that Pilgrim would fill in the rest of the story.

“Dale had seen the pass the pass on SPEED,” Pilgrim said in 2008.

“I was back at my house on Tuesday after Petite (Le Mans) and getting what seemed like hundreds of cards, letters, voicemails from Corvette owners and fans. The response was absolutely incredible,” Pilgrim said.

“Then on Thursday morning I get this package with DEI’s return address on it. I open it up and it says, ‘Dear Andy, Wow, what a pass!’ and it was signed by Dale.

“Well, you can imagine how I felt,” Pilgrim said.

A few weeks later Pilgrim was on his way to North Carolina to be a part of the announcement: Dale and Dale Jr. were teaming to be a part of a two car Team Corvette assault on the Rolex 24.

“It seems crazy stupid,” Kelly Collins said, “But from the day we all got introduced to Dale we were a team.”

For Collins, that day came later than it had for Pilgrim.

“We met again at Sebring when (Dale and Dale Jr.) came in for the November test prior to Thanksgiving,” Pilgrim recalled.

“Kelly had become a part of the team in the 2000 season and he’d been in the car with me and Franck (Fréon) for Petite. I’d been thinking about the team for the race and I thought it might be a good idea to add Kelly, just in case, you know, in case someone got sick.”

“So I suggested it to (GM Racing Marketing manager Gary) Claudio.”

Collins’ recollection picks it from there.

“Dale and I got along pretty good, we were cracking a lot of jokes back and forth right away at the test,” Collins said.

“So, I'm sitting down there on the wall the first day and Dale comes up to me and says ‘stand up.’”

“So I did.”

“He looks at me head on, kind of cocks his head to one side, stands next to me, then says, ‘You’re about the same size as me. You want to come over and drive with me, my kid and Andy?’”

“Well, first, in my mind, I’m thinking I’m about to fall over because this just is totally out of the blue and floored me,” Collins said.

“But I gathered it in and said, ‘Thank you for the honor but I can't make the decision,’ because I really didn’t know if he was busting my chops or what. But, fact was, I really couldn’t make that decision.”

“’I can handle that,’ Earnhardt said. So then he turns to (Corvette Racing manager) Doug (Fehan) and says, ‘I want Kelly in my car with my kid and Andy.’”

“Doug winked, grinned a little and that was that; I was in the car.”

Look closely enough while shopping for the replica Corvette collectible race cars of that year’s race and one will see some with three names above the driver’s door; some with four names.

“That’s the difference between when I wasn’t on the team and when I was. They’d already started production of the collectibles before I got on the team,” Collins said.

“Dale trusted Andy (Pilgrim) a lot. They became fast friends and were really close. Andy spent a lot of time with Dale, just them two, so when Andy suggested I become a part of the team, I think Dale was immediately all for it.”

According to Collins, Earnhardt was full of questions.

“I think most everyone on the outside looked at our car as a celebrity car,” Collins said, “But Dale was fully engaged from the very beginning.

“I don’t think he ever stopped asking questions because he knew he faced a steep learning curve and he wasn’t remotely interested in just tagging along. If he was going to be in that car, he was in it to win. I really appreciated his attitude. I tell you, it was different than what I had first imagined it would be when this whole thing started going down.”

Between the November test and some time on the track at DIS’ annual test days (now known as The Roar Before The 24) the busy seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion had still been able to get in only a veritable handful of practice hours in the aptly numbered No. 3 Corvette C5.R

Yet, by the end of the traditional annual kick-off race for Daytona’s annual Speed Weeks, the No. 3 Corvette team’s drivers together had traveled just over 2,285-miles and finished fourth, overall, just 50-miles behind their first-place-finishing No. 2 sister Corvette, driven by Ron Fellows, Franck Fréon, Chris Kneifel and Johnny O’Connell.

The Rolex 24 is called the most grueling of the world’s endurance contests for good reason, mainly because fewer than half the teams entered typically are running at race end.

Those teams that survive the Rolex 24 will endure more than 13 hours of nighttime driving between Saturday’s sunset and when Sun again peeks above the eastern horizon Sunday morning.

Beyond nighttime’s witching hours, over the Rolex 24’s many years Mother Nature has hurled anything from sub-freezing temperatures to flood-condition rains.

In 2001, a hard rain was falling by the time the eldest Earnhardt got in the team’s No. 3 Corvette.

In the car for his first of his driving stints and without any practice time in wet-road conditions, “Big E” still welcomed his chance to drive in the race.

“Keep an eye on my times,” Earnhardt said to his teammates as a worldwide television audience listened to the team’s radio chatter.

“If I’m going too slow, call me in and put Andy (Pilgrim) back in.”

Earnhardt, who for years had learned to lean upon only himself when the chips were down - had become the consummate Team Corvette teammate.

“You’re doing fine,” Pilgrim said in response to Earnhardt.

“I just told him where and what to expect on some of the course’s the most treacherous spots,” Pilgrim said.

“He listened and he kept asking questions. Dale did a phenomenal job. He really did.”

At race end, a broadly smiling Earnhardt joined his teammates as the two-car Corvette team, having scored first- and fourth-place finishes overall, celebrated in Gatorade Victory Lane.

Why would one of NASCAR’s greatest drivers – one of only two to have scored as many as seven championships – dare step outside his comfort zone and compete in a form of racing so different from that in which he’d proven himself time and again?

“He liked challenge,” Crisp said, “and when we left that day after the Rolex 24, we hadn’t hardly gotten in the air when Big E already started talking about and making plans for the next one.

“In all the years I’d known him, Big E was one of the baddest guys in the jungle when we walked into any other place. Yet, when we went to the Rolex 24 he understood he wasn’t coming in as the 800-pound gorilla.

“I wasn’t expecting that at all but it was pretty cool - especially looking back on it.”

Collins, who amassed a couple-dozen professional racing victories in his career, says none of them were more special than the time he spent with Earnhardt.

“To this day people walk up to me and ask if I’m the guy who drove with Dale Earnhardt,” Collins said.

“They want me to stand alongside of them and just have a picture taken of them along with one of only three guys to have ever co-driven with Dale Earnhardt in a race car – before or after the 2001 Rolex 24.

“Two weeks later he’d die and it was like ‘the shot heard round the world’ and ‘the day the music died’ all rolled into one, because sportscar racing got its biggest-ever shot in the arm when Dale was here and it lost one of its soon-to-be biggest boosters when he left.

“I’m convinced he would’ve done for sportscar racing what he’d done for NASCAR, because he understood what it was like to be us.

“We’re all racers, after all. We all seek that indescribable, sometimes impossible challenge of winning and yet do it. We all dream and live that impossible dream.

“There will always be something special about being one of those three guys and I feel especially proud and privileged to have been among them, to have known Dale Earnhardt. Shoot, I even got to spend the night with him.”

Ten years later. 10 years it’s been!

It all seems like yesterday.

Later,

DC

AJ’s SEAL OF APPROVAL

 

“I tell you, that A.J. Foyt (Jr.) was one fine driver,” Bob Riley said of the driver known to many as “Super Tex,” whose local, national and international exploits claimed wins across a broad spectrum of racing series and was the type of driver that some fervently assert is unlikely to again be seen in racing.

In the 1970’s, alone, and driving a diverse range of machines ranging from Ford’s Torino GT to a Porsche Carrera RSR 911, Foyt (at left) laid claim to nearly 60 major-series race wins, whether road courses or ovals, and among which were the 1972 Daytona 500, 1977 Indy 500 and later in the 1980’s, two Rolex 24 titles.

(NOTE: Porschemeister Vic Elford also competed in the 1972 Daytona 500, finishing 10th in a Plymouth.)

Despite Riley’s preference for a few “shop secrets” of those years being kept quiet for now, suffice to say Riley was nevertheless known to be a part of Super Tex’s inner circle for at least a few of Foyt’s 1970-era IndyCar poles and wins, including Foyt’s fourth Big One.

“A.J. is among the best drivers I’ve known and certainly was the best I knew during the 1970’s. It was a good time,” Riley said fondly of his “Coyote days.”

It wouldn’t harm that Foyt evidently held a correspondingly glowing opinion of Riley, which surfaced during a 1994 telephone conversation with one of today’s elder statesman of sportscar racing, Rob Dyson, who nearly 20 years ago was himself among the fiercest of competitors to be found on and off a race track’s asphalt.

“He said, ‘Riley’s a first-rate guy; does some really fine chassis work. He’ll treat you right,’” Dyson recalled of his succinct conversation with Foyt.

The early to mid-1990 period was a rerun of other similar episodes having occurred over the roughly four decades since sportscar racing took root in the United States. Describing the dilemma in his Feb. 8, 1993, wrap of that year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona entitled “The Boom’s Gone Bust,” AutoWeek, author Sam Moses wrote,

“Professional sports car racing, kind of a Baby Boomer on wheels, in the sense that it, too, was conceived in post-war euphoria, appears now, like many living Boomers, to be facing its own mid-life crisis. And the Big Question is the same: What to do next? What to do now?”

Awaiting was dramatic change – mostly a result of escalating, over-the-top costs that often depleted the sport’s ranks of one of its most important contributors: the sportsman driver, who raced not as much for collecting a trophy girl’s winning buss as for the almost indefinable, personal self-satisfaction of having weathered challenges most modern-world mortals don’t ordinarily face.

“In 1992 not a single race was won by someone like a Rob Dyson – the type of guy who’s necessary to what I believe is the backbone of sportscar racing,” then-IMSA president Mark Raffauf, now Grand-Am’s managing director of competition, said of the GTP era’s end – an era whose beginning he helped craft, too.

“Every single race in ’92 was won by teams having direct ties with car manufacturers. And by ‘direct ties’ I’m talking about deriving a budget and levels of technical support and resources that the everyday racer can and will only ever dream about.”

“The first GTP to finish the ’92 Rolex 24 was a Walkinshaw Jag (XJR-12D, driven by Davy Jones, Scott Pruett, David Brabham and Scott Goodyear) and they didn’t win it (the race),” Raffauf pointedly remarked.

“A lot of people forget that the overall winner (of the 1992 Rolex 24) wasn’t a GTP. It was a Nissan Group C (R91CP) car with three Japanese drivers (Masahiro Hasemi, Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Toshio Suzuki) who were in the race mainly because (IMSA) needed to bulk up the field with Group C cars; plain and simple.”

(NOTE: Of those Rolex 24-winning Nissan drivers, Suzuki thus far is the only to since return and compete in a US series; three times over the following nine seasons; one a 1996 NASCAR Busch North Series race at Nazareth Speedway.)

After Toyota and Jaguar yielded the 1992 season-opening Rolex 24 to the relatively unknown Japanese factory Nissan team, emerging once again to offer the Toyotas the most consistent challenge were Davy Jones and the Tom Walkinshaw Racing Jaguar fleet, which used the XJR-12D body style for endurance events; the XJR-14 for sprint races.

Winning at Road Atlanta and Mid-Ohio in the ’92 season’s first half, Davy Jones’ and his Jaguar would later be relegated to scrapping for second and third-place finishes with the likes of Geoff Brabham and Chip Robinson (Nissan NPT 91 A, B) Wayne Taylor and Tommy Kendall (Chevrolet Intrepids; by then two distinct teams) and Price Cobb (Mazda RX-792P). A talented pool of drivers to be sure and all of whom finished either second or third at one time or another in 1992, but also a clear testimonial to the AAR Eagle Toyota’s strengths, which closed the 1992 season winning nine of the 13 races on the schedule.

“Starting with the ’92 New Orleans race (that year’s seventh), (Dan) Gurney’s two (Eagle MKIII) Toyotas went on a seven race consecutive-win run, with either (Juan) Fangio (II) or P.J. Jones winning in the (Nos.) 99 or 98 (respectively), Raffauf said.

“Now, I don’t want to take anything away from someone like Dan Gurney, because before he gained access to the factory deal he clearly paid his dues in this sport and today remains one of its finest ambassadors, but in 1992 and 1993 the Toyota operation versus pretty much of the rest of the paddock was like a tank-on-tank shootout between a (WWII German) Tiger II tank and a Russian T-34.”

In 1993’s 11-round IMSA race season, excepting the July round at Road America and from which it was absent (some say it was due to “budgetary issues” whereas others say “purely political” reasons were the root cause), the AAR Eagle Toyota MkIII won every race in which it participated.

In seven of the 10 races which the Eagle won it likewise finished second. Another Eagle first place produced a third-place for the sister car. The worst finish of any Eagle in 1993 was at the end of Daytona’s Rolex 24, wherein the No. 99 Eagle of Fangio, Andy Wallace and Kenny Acheson finished 27th. Of course, on the same scale’s highest end was the No. 98 sister car (below, on the way to its 1993 Rolex 24 win), with drivers P.J. Jones, Rocky Moran and Mark Dismore – preserving the team’s ongoing win streak started at the 1992 New Orleans race.

“At that point the gentleman driver, the guy who got this sport going, just didn’t have a chance,” Raffauf insisted.

Whether sobered en masse by the cold reality of professional race car drivers really being disposed of an unfathomable ability beyond the norm or discouraged by moon rocket-like expenses, the gentlemen racers were nevertheless leaving.

At the IMSA-sanctioned 1988 Rolex 24 At Daytona – that race’s high-water GTP car-count mark – 31 GTPs were entered. By the 1992 Rolex 24, the GTP entry count was down to 12, one fewer than in 1991, and augmented by three Group C cars. Yet, two of the GTPs were parked when the race’s first green flag flew – and stayed that way.

(NOTE: The 1992 Rolex 24’s second-fast qualifier, a TWR Jaguar XJR-16, didn’t start that year’s race because the team decided to put the team’s resources into the 8th-fastest qualifier XJR-12D, which eventually finished second overall – nine laps behind the race-winning Nissan.)

Competing in the 1993Rolex 24 At Daytona were eight GTP and three Group C cars – all of the latter being TWR Jaguar XJR-12Ds and of which two, Nos. 3 and 32, did not last beyond 18 and 92 laps, respectively.

The No. 98 Eagle Toyota, No. 2 Jaguar and No. 30 Momo Nissan NPT-90 of Gianpiero Moretti, Derek Bell, Massimo Sigala and John Paul Jr. with about five hours remaining had a fairly spirited battle underway until troubles hit all three off and on for the race’s remainder.

The No. 2 XJR-12D, running in 1993 as a Group C car with drivers Scott Goodyear, Scott Pruett and Davy Jones, preserved a 10th-place overall finish despite having retired nearly three hours before race end. The Momo car sputtered on to a sixth-place finish, passed in the pits for fifth place as the race wound down by a near-relic, the No. 16 Porsche 962C of Rob Dyson, James Weaver, Price Cobb and Elliott Forbes-Robinson.

Although having earlier said the team would pack up its fangs and go home to England only after a following Sebring appearance, the TWR Jags actually had altogether retired from IMSA when they parked it at the Rolex 24, loosing the Eagle Toyota to fly nearly unfettered for the season’s remainder.

“It had become pretty clear that we had no choice but to pursue another path insofar as the cars were concerned. They just cost too much for the average racer,” Raffauf said.

In 1994, that other “path” became the all-new, open-cockpit World Sports Car, included among the limitations for which were restrictions on aerodynamics (e.g.: flat bottoms) and engines (e.g.: no turbochargers).

Making the GTP-to-WSC switch was Porsche 962 team owner Dyson, who in 1986 introduced his famed No. 16 to the Rolex 24 with himself, Price Cobb and Drake Olson taking turns at the wheel. (Below, an ‘88 Dyson Porsche 962 GTi-DR1 iteration at WPB.)

With an eye toward the new WSC rules, Porsche had developed its “Project X” car behind a thick veil of secrecy. Likewise involved in the Porsche 962’s introduction at the 1984 Rolex 24 at Daytona, driver Mario Andretti at the time described Project X as the most secretive he’d ever experienced as a racer.

Midway between Daytona International Speedway’s traditional early January test and the Rolex 24, however, IMSA decided to dial down the Porsche’s air flow with additional restrictions, to which Porsche took exception and altogether pulled their entries.

“Well, Porsche at that point obviously was pretty much out as a choice for any sort of future customer car. But before that happened and because Spice had built a really good GTP platform, we decided to try its open-cockpit WSC car,” Dyson said.

In the 1994 Rolex 24 at Daytona, the WSC’s first appearance at Daytona International Speedway, Dyson, James Weaver, Scott Sharp and John Paul Jr. finished 40th in a Spice-Ferrari DR-3, breaking after qualifying seventh and completing 339 laps of the winner’s 707 laps.

“We stuck a Ferrari engine in it that frankly, in my estimation, sounded better than the Ferrari 333SP’s engine. Unfortunately, the (WSC) Spice was just junk.”

“So, we were in the position of wanting to compete and not having many choices aside from the Ferrari 333SP, the Spice, Lola and a few other minor players. I just didn’t like what was available.”

“So I called A.J. (Foyt) and asked him what he thought, who he thought would be capable of building a competitive car, and he said to go with Bob Riley,” Dyson said.

Commissioned by Dyson of Riley Technologies’ corporate predecessor Riley & Scott, the R&S MkIII was born.

Introduced at the 1995 Rolex 24 with Ford power (eventually settling on a 5.5L Ford built by Lozano Brothers Porting), the U.S.-designed-and-built World Sports Car was specifically created to go toe-to-toe with the Ferrari 333SP, if in no one else’s mind but in that of Dyson’s.

“The Ferrari was a great-looking and great-sounding car, and we thought seriously about getting one, but Ferrari tended to want to control everything and have a final say on engine, chassis, suspension and so on, “Dyson said.

“So, if you went with Ferrari, they were going to basically tell you what you could do with your car. Well, I don’t like that. I like to experiment and try things on a car that maybe others haven’t tried. I couldn’t do that with Ferrari.”

Facing four Ferrari 333SPs (built by Dallara with a heavy assist from Kevin Doran) among the 18 WSC cars in the largest overall field since the 1988 race, Dyson’s new No. 16 Ford-powered MkIII – the sole such in the 74 cars starting the race – qualified 6th-fastest over the 3.56-mile road course in the hands of Weaver.

Scheduled co-drivers Dyson, Sharp and a new guy named Butch Leitzinger (at left in 2001) – who’d not previously driven anything but a Nissan 240SX or 300ZX at Daytona – hardly got beyond laying down some pre-race practice laps when the No. 16’s power plant broke while on its 12th race lap, leading to an embarrassing next-to-last debut – and behind the field’s five Spices.

(NOTE: Though Butch Leitzinger had not raced anything but a Nissan at Daytona until the 1995 race with Dyson, his previous race there proved pretty successful. Stepping from a 240SX to a 300ZX in 1994, Leitzinger teamed to win his first Rolex 24 with Scott Pruett, Paul Gentilozzi, Steve Millen and was aided in the pits by usual Gentilozzi team manager Lee White - more recently of TRD fame.)

(NOTE: In a still-standing record, Spirit of Daytona Racing founder Troy Flis, brother Todd Flis, Craig Conway and Richard Nesbitt drove a Mitsubishi from a 74th-place start to a 24th-place race finish – an improvement of 50 positions.)

After a 37th-place in the 1995 Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring, afterward characterized as an extended, 201-lap test session, the Dyson team would start campaigning a second R&S Mk III and despite its ignominious start, Dyson’s MkIII team was on its way to win five of the 1995 season’s races, finishing with 11 top 5s and nine podiums.

Yet, most likely owed to Daytona and Sebring, Weaver would finish second to Fermin Velez in the championship. Leitzinger finished fourth in the championship points, mostly because he missed a WSC race while stoking the budding fires of a stock car racing career at Watkins Glen International (for a NASCAR Cup Series ride; winning a total of three NASCAR Busch North races in 1994, 1995).

While a third MkIII would make a couple or three starts late in 1995, the MkIII really started rolling in the 1996 season with a Riley & Scott “factory” team, under the Doyle Racing banner and with driver Wayne Taylor (yep, that “Wayne Taylor”), who was back in a Riley car.

“We entered it primarily as a test bed for product development,” Bob Riley said. “You just can’t stand pat with something that’s been developed, however good it may be and think it can’t be further developed. As true now as it was then, the best way to do it is on the track, in a real-world environment.”

Powered by a new Oldsmobile (Aurora) 4-cam, 32-valve 4.0L V-8 engine, the “factory” effort, with Bill Riley also involved, the MkIII caught its first Rolex 24 win with Taylor, Jim Pace and Sharp co-driving; the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring with Taylor, Pace and Eric van de Poele driving. Eventually, Taylor snagged a competitive 1996 IMSA driving championship.

In 1997, after being a member of the only seven-driver team to have won the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Leitzinger would eventually win that year’s top-driver award and followed it with another driving championship in 1998, again with Dyson’s Ford-powered MkIII.

In its eight years of competition, the R&S MkIII chassis: won slightly more than a third of the races it entered; its drivers claimed eight driving championships; helped take six team championships; and, won three constructor titles for Riley & Scott.

But if you think those numbers were impressive . . .

Later,

DC

I-95 NORTHBOUND

 

On an expedition to add another experience among the plethora of those which racing offers, your scribe was riding shotgun on the post-Roar rebound with Michael Shank Racing’s transportation and logistics Main Dude (and one-time, only, tour guide) Ralph Lohr (at left).

Lohr’s main set of wheels is the black-on-blue transporter bearing the dated likenesses of John Pew (at right, flying to 2010 Mid-O podium) and Michael Valiante. Tucked above and behind us in the trailer were the No. 6 Continental Tire Ford-Dallara and the No. 23 “Living Legends” Ford-Riley.

Again bearing the Crown Royal XR liquor colors for 2011 (below left; in yet another hauler), Pew hasn’t officially been in the No. 6 car since 2009 and has since become clean-shaven (spouse Stephanie reportedly “likes it, too,”).

On the other hand, Valiante’s unchanged year-over-year general appearance lends itself to be among a Photoshopping graphic artist’s ideal subjects. Indeed, surely arising would be general talk of apocalyptic proportions should Valiante change.

Nevertheless, in his five decades of watching race cars do strange things (not to mention the rest of humanity undertaking still stranger stuff, all the while each believing themselves expert drivers), Ol’ DC had not previously even pulled an air-horn rope (which ain’t no more, sad to report) much less taken to the road in 70-feet of a supposed18-wheeler (“supposed” because not actually counted where the wheels, but they were up there).

Mike Shank and Lohr were initially reluctant to allow a wet-behind-the-ears old guy experience the “glory” of riding in a big rig . . . until realizing this writer was more serious about doing so than Mark Patterson (at left, and, that is, excepting when Patterson is not at “war” in his usual playpen among the world’s financial elite).

Variously described as “one of the worst” winter storms among those recently caused by “global climate change,” Lohr and his MSR trucking cohorts – Tom Finley and Rich Vance – dueled with Mother Nature and, all things considered, did so rather admirably.

(Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the years-old, good old “global warming” descriptive now is morphing into “climate change” and into the boundaries of which can be lumped any anomalous weather pattern without alteration of the underlying hypotheses?)

The precipitation falling around us as we passed into northern Georgia, through South Carolina and into North Carolina made some tree-lined Interstate stretches look like a picturesque “winter wonderland.”

Far from what one would ordinarily see in a mind’s eye, the aforementioned otherwise “beautiful” snow and ice were a “hell” for those in want of traction.

On one four-lane, otherwise abandoned Internet stretch a black VW Jetta was inadvertently doing doughnuts when Crown Royal XR 18-wheeler driver Tom Finley in front of us adeptly did a “lane toss” that would make any Skip Barber instructor proud.

All but one of the four lanes was snow-covered and virtually indistinguishable – with even the excepted lane having but two tire grooves.

Trailing Finley, Lohr and I had little clue as to Finley’s need of the toss until the CB (Citizens Band radio) crackled simultaneous to our suddenly clear site line to the little car, which soon after started doing a dance that told us why Finley had wanted to move in the first instance.

“I gotta get outside of this one,” Finley said, while simultaneously undertaking his toss even though broadcasting a CB warning to the trailing Lohr and Vance haulers.

Not long after we learned of the VW’s fate. The driver, for whatever reason, came to a stop in the middle-right traffic lane – basically smack-dab in the middle of the highway – and was absolutely the wrong place, as would later CB chatter confirm when soon skipping ahead from one truck to another were reports of a half-dozen vehicles that one-by-one plowed into the Jetta and/or a tractor-trailer whose driver first plowed into the car.

Bummer.

On the sharpest Interstate curves – especially interchanges tracking from one highway to another – repeated silently in this rider’s mind was Skip Barber instructor Terry Lee Earwood’s (at left, accepting some trophy somewhere, credit Earwood, of course)) admonition of “every male child was born turning too early” whenever a single, white lane-marking line appeared from beneath the snow and ice.

Just about that time, Earwood’s “early in; early out” chant would follow.

Made by others traveling the same path before him and having zero clue as to whether it was a lane’s left or right-side solid line, Lohr just kept on trucking through the established radius, even when one eventually tracked onto roadside shoulders, mainly because one isn’t inclined to quickly attempt bucking one of Isaac Newton’s famous “Laws” – especially at the fore of a 75,000-lb. load.

Seen throughout the journey were others who tried and clearly lost.

Lohr’s tuning of XM Satellite’s Deep Tracks couldn’t have been timed better - if nothing else but to keep Ol’ DC chilled.

Still, the highway was largely devoid of traffic because “Climate Change Ice Storm 3” (of one doesn’t count the big Yurripean storms, too)had scared most folks off the roadways.

Largely, “parking it” was a good thing in such weather because far too many “four-wheelers” scare the daylights of truckers who far too often encounter glib drivers even when dry and in perfect light.

Such being Lohr’s point of view even though the chances are good he’d come out of an untoward unscathed, given that he’s driving a veritable battleship as relatively compared to the dinghies and speedboats below him.

Yet a collision, even one laying no blame at all at the feet of Lohr, would turn upside down a tight timetable that depends on him delivering “the goods” on time.

Although someone will grouse should the United States Postal Service’s “Priority” mail take five days instead of two or three (I know, I’ve groused a few times in the last year, alone - and the USPS wonders why revenues keep declining) a car race positively, definitely runs as scheduled. (Then again, there was 9/11 and the hurricanes of 2004).

For sure, though, a race won’t be delayed on account of Mike Shank’s delayed truck.

Imagine Patterson’s wail if his No. 23 didn’t arrive for the Rolex 24? Heck, one bets even Ozz Negri (at left) would be a tad bothered if his Crown Royal XR car didn’t arrive as scheduled – assuming no one was injured, of course.

No folks, 18-wheelers carrying upwards of 40 tons are hard to stop on dimes, nor within that distance achieved by a decently maintained car, nor tossed – unless by Tom Finley – from one lane to another.

Nevertheless, Lohr will deliver his goods on time, every time. Whether going to or returning from the track, as was the case on Jan. 10, when we really nailed the snow and ice just so that the boys could have some cars to rebuild upon return to the MSR shop, Tuesday.

There is a lot more to the “glory” of trucking than easily meets the eye, but all that is being reserved for a video to be seen sometime down the road, such as it exists.

Later,

DC

P.S. Yes, “AJ Said He Was Okay” is coming up.