LOVE AND HATE

LEXINGTON, Ohio -- On the one hand, there's Brumos Racing, whose contributions to racing -- should anyone in racing have somehow missed their scope and magnitude -- have been considerable.

Of Brumos' prominent founders, the late Bob Snodgrass also was instrumental in getting the Grand American Road Racing Association -- now just "Grand-Am" -- off the ground at the tail end of last century.

Another who is deeply involved in both Brumos Racing and the Jacksonville, Fla., Brumos automobile dealership chain from which the team draws its soul, is entrepreneur Dan Davis, who was a well-established Floridian when Snodgrass (along with Mike Colucci) cars in knee pants watched race cars compete in downtown Watkins, Glen, N.Y.

Then there's yet another race-day member of the Brumos Racing "founding" cast, Hurley Haywood, who as a driver captured wins for "Brumos" in cars as diverse as 914-6's, 917's, 935's, 962's and a Porsche-powered FABCAR. Still, Haywood can be found wherever Brumos Racing may be, lending his brain if not his body to the No. 59's Porsche GT3 Cup car's effort.

Brumos Racing drivers Leh Keen and Andrew Davis -- both having developed championship forms before joining Brumos for 2011 -- admitted to understanding theirs would be a tough first year but, as Davis put it, "How can you not be a part of the Brumos team if you've got the opportunity?"

Many others -- from the doggedly handsome Don Leatherwood to "Peppermint" Patti Tantillo -- also "bleed" Brumos red, blue and white.

On the other hand, there's Autohaus Motorsports.

A relative "new kid" on the block when compared to Brumos, Autohaus Motorsports was founded by Robert Kirkland in 1999, yet, it isn't much of a stretch to believe that a guy who sold Mercedes-Benz cars for a living, just as has Brumos, knows a thing or two about sports cars and racing, too.

Whether "new" or old hand, though, doesn't much matter because people don't get into racing, whether at the ownership or driving level, not to win - if you catch the drift.

Also not interested in just tooling around tracks for fun is Autohaus driver Bill Lester.

Having scored a BS in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, Lester intellectually is on a par with some of racing's greatest names -- past and present.

Lester so loved racing he gave up a cushy job and left behind a whole bunch of stock options when racing's siren song successfully called him away from Hewlett Packard.

Lester's not done badly at racing, financially speaking, but who in racing doesn't think he could've done still better toiling in some dark, pizza-box and Coke Zero-bottle-strewn computer engineering lab?

As have so many others with their work lives; even their love lives, Lester gave up a lot to find that better line; that perfect apex.

The team's other driver is Jordan Taylor, one of Wayne and Shelley Taylor's offspring.

SunTrust Daytona Prototype driver Ricky Taylor, Jordan's older brother by just under two years, has been getting the lion's share of attention over the last year or so, but those who hang around racing know Jordan Taylor is far from a slouch.

Indeed, stints in Karting, Skip Barber and Formula Mazda notwithstanding, Jordan Taylor this year in Rolex Series GT was on pace to be the first of the brothers to win a national-level, major sportscar racing championship in that black-and-red No. 88 Autohaus Chevrolet Camaro.

On the Friday night prior to the Mid-Ohio race, it looked like Jordan Taylor would score that championship, too, though certainly nothing ever in racing (if not everywhere else, too) is certain.

The above cast of characters would be largely responsible for squaring the 2011 Rolex Sports Car Series' Grand Touring driver, team and manufacturer championships this past weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports car Course, all of it coming on the heels of a fifth championship-points lead change in a class within which seven different teams have won in 2011.

With Autohaus atop Brumos by just three points when the team transporters parked and disgorged their respective contents at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, each team needed to hit on all cylinders just to maintain the status quo or, perhaps, one to miss a cylinder or two to drastically change it all.

As Friday qualifying got underway the Brumos Racing team would hit on none of them. Not a one.

Try as it may, not a single cylinder of Brumos Racing engine's six cylinders would fire its fuel charge and without a qualifying time, it would be sent to the rear of the starting grid.

"I was pumped to get the pole," Davis said late in the day as he and co-driver Keen headed for the parking lot.

"We had some fast times in practice and I felt like I could get it."

When a Daytona Prototype is sent "to the rear," it goes to the head of the GT pack. Well kinda, sorta and not exactly. But it ain't the "back," as was found Chip Ganassi Racing's Memo Rojas in the No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley DP when, subsequent to a post-qualifying engine change, he on the race grid found himself at least preceding the Stevenson Auto Group's No. 57Chevrolet Camaro and Whelen Engineering's No. 31 Chevrolet Corvette.

In his Brumos Porsche, Davis, however, really was at the field's rear.

"There's a whole bunch of cars in front of you from there," Davis said in complete sincerity.

Winning the GT title suddenly had taken on a whole new dimension -- for everyone but Davis, who pledged to take the lead and did just that on Lap 27.

Talk about lonely: Sitting inside his idled Autohaus Camaro, one can only imagine the slow-motion silence Lester, must've felt just after a slippery track threw him from it on Lap 15.

For two laps Lester would sit, completely alone, between asphalt and metal barrier.

The silence must've been

deafening as he saw the championship fade from his grasp.

Frankly, Autohaus, Bill Lester and Jordan Taylor deserved better.

But so too did Brumos, Leh Keen and Andrew Davis -- and got it.

One race pretty well summed why this writer hates this sport -- and loves it, too.

Later,