JUST THE FACTS, JACK

The 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 At Daytona (This is a proper noun, the owner of the name having chosen the name and to which doesn’t apply are grammar rules other than the “proper noun” rule; the reason the “At” is capitalized. K?)

Time of race: 24:00.36.793

Laps completed: 761

Miles covered: 2,709.160

Average Speed: 112.834 mph, 181.588 kph

Fastest Race Lap/Time/Average Speed/Driver: 497, 1:41.470, 126.003 mph (202.782 kph), Ryan Dalziel

Margin Of Victory: 0:05.198

Caution Periods: 13 for 64 laps

A total of 10 cars would lead at least one lap (car Nos. 76 and 6), four cars posted double-digits while two cars, No. 60 LiveOn.com Ford and No. 8 Starworks Ford, would account for the greater number of collective laps led, 249 and 295, respectively.

In their shared ride, Starworks Motorsports' No. 8 Ford, Scots Ryan Dalziel and Allan McNish topped the race's 22 overall lap leaders with 146 and 137 laps, respectively.

Four of the No. 8 Starworks Ford's five drivers claimed leader laps, adding Lucas Luhr (9 laps) and Enzo Potolicchio (3) to the aforementioned.

With 92 laps, Justin Wilson was at the top of the No. 60 LiveOn.com Ford drivers' lead-lap chart, followed by A.J. Allmendinger (90) and Oswaldo Negri Jr. (67).

A total of 22 drivers in 10 cars exchanged the lead 53 times during the 24-hour race -- or, slightly greater than two lead changes occurred on-average each hour of the race.

Justin Wilson (No. 60 LiveOn.com Ford) compiled the most consecutive lead laps with 84, followed by Ryan Dalziel (No. 8 Starworks Ford) with 75 laps, and Allan McNish (No. 8 Starworks Ford) 64 laps.

Each having eight times crossed the finish line ahead of all others, two drivers shared having most often led the race: A.J. Allmendinger (No. 60 LiveOn.com Ford) and Scott Pruett (No. 01 Telmex/Target BMW). Allan McNish (No. 8 Starworks Ford) led on five different occasions.

In Grand Touring, Andy Lally, in the No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche, topped the most-laps-led column with 132, followed by Andrew Davis' 124 and Leh Keen's 100, the latter two in the No. 59 Brumos Porsche which led the race on 22 separate occasions, followed in that category with 19 by the GT-class winner, No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche and, trailing well behind with seven different lead changes, the No. 67 TRG Porsche.

The No. 60 LiveOn.com Ford (DP) completed 761 laps, tying 1990 race-winners Davy Jones, Jan Lammers and Andy Wallace's No. 61 TWR Jaguar XJR-12 (GTP).

The winning MSR team fell one-lap short of equaling the Rolex 24's record 762 laps, set in 1992 by Nissan Motorsports' No. 23 Nissan R91CP (Grp. C), driven by Masahiro Hasemi, Kazuyoshi Hoshino, Toshio Suzuki and D.C. Williams (nah, not really, but got ya for a microsecond, huh?).

Ruminations of the Rolex 24 are coming . . . just not today.

Later,

DC

FALSIES II

ROLEX 24 FALSEHOODS

MOV(e it on over)

"It Was So Much More Competitive 'In The Day'" and "Racing Was So Much More Exciting!"

Um, exactly what "day" might that be and, further, do some define "exciting" in a manner other than, say, does Webster?

The 2009, 2010 and 2011 Rolex 24 At Daytona races produced a combined margin of victory of 0:54.746 -- well under the 3.56-mile track's fastest recorded lap time, regardless of year or vehicle. Averaged, each of the three races' MOV is 0:18.25-seconds.

Given the nature of averages -- with which two or three measurements a 10-ft.-deep pond can be conveyed as something that "on paper" appears far shallower -- it's only kosher to note that the 2010 Rolex 24 At Daytona recorded the highest MOV, 0:52.303, of the three races.

Of those three races, the 2009 Rolex 24 provided the narrowest first-over-second-place gap at 0:0.167 (167-thousandths of one second).

How does one compare or describe a gap of 0.167?

In that time, an otherwise unencumbered light beam traverses a little over 50,065,340 meters or, distilled, 50,065 kilometers -- about a 20-percent greater distance than the Earth's 40,075k equatorial circumference.

A little more down to earth: at 30 mph one travels 7.35 feet in 0.167-second.

In 0.167-second at 200 mph, a car will span 48.99 feet -- or about five feet more than the distance of three nose-to-tail DP's.

First-through-fourth-places in 2009 were separated by 10.589 seconds. The funky part: the 2009 race's final caution period ran through Lap 705. The winning No. 58 Brumos Racing Porsche-Riley, with drivers David Donohue, Darren Law, Antonio Garcia and Buddy Rice, covered 735 laps. The 2009 race finished with a four-car, pedal-to-metal, 30-lap scramble for first.

After a late-race, three-lap caution, the 2011 Rolex 24 At Daytona's five up-front competitors had only a single green-flag lap in which to sort their final finishing order.

Reaching the checkered flag in fewer than two minutes, only 3.572 seconds separated the top-four finishers, at the front of which sat the No. 01 Telmex/Target BMW Riley of Scott Pruett, Memo Rojas, Joey Hand and Graham Rahal.

"It was an awesome way to finish a race," race leader and eventual winner Pruett said.

"Even though we were in the lead, I was hoping we wouldn't finish the race under yellow. The fans won in the end because they got a race that was determined by what happened on the track."

Wasn’t there another relatively recent race, say, in 2009, give or take, that finished with four-hours to go after about five hours? Something like that; officials deciding the race, too.

Meanwhile, back in Daytona: Chip Ganassi Racing w/ Felix (con me amigo José) Sabates No. 01 Telmex/Target BMW Riley had the race in hand. With pit-road souls disposed of celebrating having already started their flow into the team's pits, Chip Ganassi wasn't at all in a similar mood. It's something he'd seen before -- celebrating before a victory had been locked up by a checkered flag -- and it usually didn't bode well.

On Lap 690 and a part of the Ganassi team for the first time, talented young British driver Justin Wilson called over his radio that while traversing the chicane something had gone wrong with the car's front suspension.

In the East Bank and rapidly closing on pit entrance, a decision was made to bring the driver and car in - straight the garage.

While the Telmex/Target car's front clip was replaced and car refueled, Pruett jumped in for the final run.

With fewer than 65 laps remaining in the race the No. 9 Action Express Racing Porsche Cayenne Riley suddenly was out front.

Two of the rookie team's four veteran drivers, Ryan Dalziel and Mike Rockenfeller, were late in joining team regulars João Barbosa and 2004 Rolex 24 champ Terry Borcheller.

For Dalziel it was a chance at getting a paid ride and such wasn't much different for Rockenfeller. Perhaps neither felt the race was theirs to win . . . until the race's last 90-minutes.

Of the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Rolex 24 At Daytona races, the 2010 race would provide the largest margin over a second-place car -- the No. 01 Telmex/Target -- but the winner's dark horse win was no less surprising than any other in recent memory.

WHAT ABOUT MAX?

"Close finishes happened all the time back in the GTP days. I can remember that Daytona race when Max Papis finished second," so goes the refrain.

Max Papis never competed at Daytona in a GTP.

In an inspired performance that has a far better, first-Daytona background story that preceded Papis' famous 1996 ride in a Gianpiero Moretti-owned Dallara 333SP (neither a misprint or miscue, ask Kevin Doran about it, sometime), a second-place Italian-driver actually named Massimiliano Papis finished 64.099 seconds short of first place after 2,481.32 miles of racing.

Other people remember it, too, and most particularly, the race winner, um, er, uh . . . now who was that guy?

Oh yes! Wayne Taylor!

(You know, the always impeccably dressed, like Warren Scheckter, head of SunTrust Racing. That is, Taylor is the head of SunTrust, not Jody Scheckter's nephew or, for that matter, Ian Scheckter's son nor, for the same matter, Tomas Scheckter's cousin. The race team; not the bank; Taylor owns the race team. David Pijot owns the bank. Right? Well, maybe not, but he's sure been there a long, long time.

("Oh, you mean the tallish, bald, sort of old guy who has reading glasses and wears golf shirts?" No, if anyone on the SunTrust team might fit that description it is Simon Hodgson, the real brains of the outfit and who wrenched Alex Zanardi and Juan Pablo Montoya to open-wheel championships. Hah-hah, just kidding, Wayne. That is, about Simon being the brains and such, after all, he really did wing the championships’ thing.

(And it's not that Simon doesn't have brains, either. It's just that he doesn't look at the world through rose-colored glasses. Which I see you've finally given up . . . for blue glasses! Nevertheless whatever makes your car race, Wayne).

"It's probably the only race, ever, that more people remember who finished second than remember who finished first," Taylor said of 1996 Rolex 24 race (said other ways in various ways at various times, some being monosyllabic, unprintable and likely quite close to what he's thinking of me this very instant).

"With two and one-half hours to go we had a four-lap cushion," Taylor, who drove the race's final 70 minutes, told a Daytona Beach News-Journal reporter about three years after "Back In The Day" actually ended with Dan Gurney's GTP team taking the cake in 1993.

"Max Papis was lapping at six seconds a lap quicker than us. We calculated that by the final lap he would be on the lead lap with us -- which he was."

"He would've passed us had I crashed the car, or pulled over and parked it, or did something really stupid, which included fighting for a lead which we securely held," Taylor recounted years later during a golf club locker-room interview, "So, I let him go 'round."

"The point was to win Daytona, not to keep some backmarker from overtaking. At that point I knew all I needed to do was keep him in sight and win the race."

And he did, well, win the race, along with co-drivers Jim Pace, Scott Sharp; Doyle Racing; Oldsmobile (ask your grandfather); and, some outfit known today as Riley Technologies.

(The '96 race's overall third-place finisher? Only 48-laps behind were drivers Jim Downing, Butch Hamlet, Tim McAdam and Barry Waddell (who IS this Waddell guy?) in a Kudzu DLM Mazda.

TIME 'GOLDENS' ALL WOUNDS

Or MOV Revisited, Reexamined

During the oft-cited, so-called “Golden Era" of "Back in The Day" prototype racing -- roughly 1985 through 1993 -- in those nine races the single closest Margin Of Victory was a 0:1:49.150 recorded in 1986 when Al Holbert, Derek Bell and Al Unser Jr's No. 14 Porsche 962 beat the No. 8 T-Bird Swap Shop 962 quartet of A.J. Foyt, Arie Luyendyk, Danny Sullivan and Preston Henn.

Second-closest MOV in that time frame was the 1989 Daytona 24, with a 0:2:06.597 MOV, in which the No. 62 Porsche 962 of Bob Wollek, Derek Bell, John Andretti and Jim Busby came in first place, followed by the No. 61 TWR Jaguar XJR-9 of Price Cobb, John Nielsen, Andy Wallace and Jan Lammers.

Three-race, consecutive close-finish comparables to that of the Rolex 24 At Daytona's 2009-2011 stretch couldn't be found in the 1985-1993 time frame. Indeed, even consecutive year-over-year tight finishes weren't to be found, the 1985-1993 first-to-second place MOV's most frequently not being measured in seconds or minutes as much as quantities of laps:

1985 - 17 laps

1987 - 8 laps

1988 - 1 lap

1990 - 4 laps

1991 - 8 laps

1992 - 9 laps

1993 - 10 laps

Yours truly chose the 1985-1993 time period as being most representative of the "The Golden Age" based on the following considerations:

In 1985, due to a westward shift of the Pedro Rodriguez International Turn ("East Horseshoe" or "Turn 3"), the track's overall road-course length decreased from 3.870 to 3.56 miles;

Porsche's 956 prototype never competed at Daytona International Speedway. A one-off Porsche 962 was introduced in the 1984 SunBank 24 for testing purposes, only, and it broke, um, was "voluntarily retired" after 127 laps (well, at least Mario Andretti claimed the race pole for the 962 with a 1:50.989). In 1985, six of the world's eight 962s at the time, started that year's SunBank 24 At Daytona;

With the conclusion of the 1993 SunBank 24, also concluded was the GTP, or Grand Touring Prototype, designation to the favor of the "World Sports Car" concept -- in simplistic terms an open-top, flat-bottom race car -- which in a collaborative effort was mandated by IMSA primarily because the GTP handwriting had been on the wall for years, the 1993 race closing out the "era" with all of eight GTPs in the field.

Should anyone care to squawk, though, IMSA's "GTP" designation was first used in 1982, when at race-end the MOV was 9 laps. In 1983, 6 laps; 1984, 9 laps.

The dawn of the World Sports Car concept, which began at Daytona in 1994, took three years to take hold before the first win, achieved by the aforementioned Wayne Taylor, Jim Pace and Scott Sharp.

In the meantime, Scott Pruett, Butch Leitzinger, Paul Gentilozzi and Steve Millen in their Nissan 300ZX GTS car won the '94 race, ushering in the WSC form of racing -- by a piddling 24 laps.

In 1995, driving a special-exception "LMWSC" Kremer K8 Porsche Spyder, Christophe Bouchut, Giovanni Lavaggi, Marco Werner and Jürgen Lässig, won with a 5-lap margin.

If a special "era" exists -- that is, a consecutive number of years having competitive racing -- it is “now.”

Later,

DC

FALSIES

ROLEX 24 FALSEHOODS

Haywood Drove a 917 at Daytona

(Note: This is the first in a series of Rolex 24 falsies of however many Ol' DC cares to post. But, he figures at least one more will hit before The Seriously Big Race later this week. The links will whisk the clicker to exotic background material at least once or twice. They're mostly for Ed Bennett's sake, though, so he can gain a sense of the sport's background).

When one works closely enough to something, probably anything, it's surprising what others may see or for that matter not see and, even, see something where nothing such existed at all.

Thoughts of what is, isn't and couldn't have been recently arose during a question-and-answer (QnA) between The Fourth Estate Inquisitors Club and a couple of notable, accomplished sportscar drivers, both of whom having been around the sport a lot longer than many of the inquisitors.

One of the interrogators confused a couple of facts and spoke of them as having simultaneously occurred when they hadn't at all.

"Hurley, what was it like to drive a Porsche 917 back in the day?"

For all the considerable knowledge and great ability possessed and displayed by one Hurley H. Haywood, competitively driving a Porsche 917 wasn't among it, for he hadn't at all been at the wheel of a 917 (parade, show or "historic" laps notwithstanding) in either its or his "day."

Haywood might've, probably has driven a 917 since the car dominated its two Daytona 24 races (1970, 1971), but FIA rules would sunset Herr Doktor Norbert Singer's first contribution to his storied Porsche career about two years before Haywood became a household name of lofty enough stature to drive any factory backed Porsche.

(Bar Bet Material: No, Dr. Singer -- who has his own fan club, by the way -- didn't design the 917, but he did design the 917's ducting.)

(OL’ DC NOTE: As usual, when Ol’ DC blows it, he leaves the evidence trail intact. Thinking “Daytona” and “prototype” racing, Ol’ DC just up and totally forgot HHH’s 917-10 Can-Am days, even though Ol’ DC personally witnessed a few. So, in one way, Hurley did drive the 917 in his and a few other people’s “day.” But he still didn’t drive a 917K, or 917L, which were a different breed than the 917/10 and, eventually, the Porsche 917/30 that flat-out dealt a death blow to Can-Am. And I even possess personally shot pictures of Haywood in the Brumos 917. Bummer.)

Herr Doktor Singer's mind was at work hatching the 917's air-ducting system just about the same time, give or take, that Peter Gregg discovered Haywood in 1968 at a Jacksonville, Fla., SCCA autocross.

Haywood, driving a Corvette between college classes he'd soon, um, make like a tree and leave, had all but tripped over the autocross in a hunt to dispel boredom.

Gregg was at the same event for the purpose of breaking in a new Porsche being prepped for racing.

Haywood, not knowing any better, was unbothered by Gregg's already well-founded racing reputation and turned faster laps than did Gregg, who not only noticed someone did better than he but civilly talked with him.

In a much later, similar situation at Savannah, Georgia's Roebling Road Raceway in a new race car both drove (no, not at the same time, Menego), Haywood again was the faster of the two.

"He hired me on the spot," Haywood said of the aftermath.

Co-driving a 911S the two drivers afterward won their first race together at Watkins Glen International in 1969, after which Haywood involuntarily was on his way to a government job in a Southeast Asian paradise.

When Haywood returned to racing at the start of the 1971 season, the 24 Hours of Daytona was his first stop, the FIA long before that event having already mandated the 917's competitive demise, so angry were they with the Germans.

In 1971, two-driver teams were common to an international-level 24-hour race (23 of that year's 48 Daytona starters were such) so as a twosome, Gregg and Haywood were de rigueur in tackling the race without a third or fourth driver along for the ride in their No. 59 Brumos Porsche Audi Porsche 914/6 (#9140430705).

But they really wouldn't need one, either.

Qualifying 23rd, after 260 race laps something snapped mechanically (never does a Porsche engine fry; don't believe the race's official record keeping) and the pair finished 29th overall -- 428 laps in arrears to eventual winners Pedro Rodriguez (his fourth Daytona win) and Jackie Oliver, whose John Wyer No. 2 "ride" was one of four Porsche 917's on hand.

The good news? Gregg and Haywood finished nearly 150 laps ahead of Derek Bell and Jo Siffert's No. 1 John Wyer Porsche 917K and only 14 laps behind a 28th-place No. 4 917K driven by Vic Elford and Jonkheer Gijsbert van Lennep, Esq., who later in 1971 co-drove the same No. 3 Martini and Rossi 917 to a Le Mans win with Herr Doktor Helmut Marko (yes, that Helmut Marko) who co-drove with Rudi Lins at Daytona.

(BBM: In its 1970 Daytona debut, the Porsche 917K scored a victory with co-drivers Rodriguez, Leo Kinnunen and Brian Redman. Redman also finished second, driving a sister 917K. According to, well, the storytellers, Kinnunen had difficulty with understanding the Queen's English, as spoken by John Wyer and company. Having been repeatedly told to slow due to his massive lead but apparently not having a "clue," when Kinnunen next pitted for fuel Redman went in for two slower-driving stints so as to preserve the car for the finish. Of course, there are those who would say, even to this day, that Redman is slow, slow, slow anyway. Countering such fallacy was his later 1981 championship romp in the Flying Banana, aka the Cooke-Woods' Lola T600).

Insofar as Daytona and, especially, the FIA was concerned, when 1971 ended so, too, did the Porsche 917: two Daytona races; two Daytona wins; and, Daytona done.

The 917 was a helluva car having a legendary status rivaling that of axe-wielding Paul Bunyan's -- but even Herr Doktor Singer didn't rank it the equal, much less ahead of the Porsche prototypes that would follow. Then again, the following race cars would pretty much be "all" Herr Doktor Singer's whereas the 917 wasn't.

Before imaginative enhancement and following fantastic tales took hold, the Porsche 917 likely was more attributable to a boring racing climate fostered by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) than anything else.

In a series of moves during the years immediately preceding the 917's introduction at the March 13, 1969, Geneva International Motor Show, the FIA in June 1968 had come down hard on prototypes having large-displacement engines.

And who had kicked bootie with large-displacement engines? Exactly!

All sorts of behind-the-seen political reasons were cited for the FIA's almost complete sportscar racing rulebook rewrite (try to quickly say that three times, starting with "complete") but the FIA (with the ACO celebrating in the background) made it pretty clear American-based engineering was no longer welcome unless it first could "homologate" Yurrupean-sized engines. For goodness sakes, Ford's Pinto and Chevrolet's Vega both were a couple or three years still down the road.

Small-displacement engines!? At the time, frankly, yours truly was trying to just get his head around something called "cubic centimeters" and eventually would acquire a Vega to better understand it.

But liters?

Having unloaded on Zee Ameerikahns on the Atlantic Ocean's western shore, the French-dominated FIA hadn't given much consideration to chronic foe Germany (the reader does know France and Germany are historically acrimonious, no? Believe it: doubtful would be the recent collaborative resolve of France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel if not for a considerable fear of a collapse of the Yurrupean, oops, European Currency Unit, with such doing no good whatsoever for either country, especially Germany -- according to leading German economist Jörg Bergmeister, who happens to also drive a Porsche every now and again between economics lectures).

The result of the FIA's rules rewrite was a 800-kilogram (1764-pound), 5-liter homologated sports car class having a minimum build of 25-units.

It was a racing class that, in net effect, produced the world's first "supercar," the 917, because the class was intended for "street cars."

As known by anyone possessing at least some awareness of Porsche's glorious racing history, the company scrambled to produce their 25 examples of the 917 but only after the FIA learned of Porsche's intent to compete within its "S" or "Sports" (not "prototype") competition class and, most particularly, after learning that Porsche had only fully constructed six of the FIA's 25 required cars.

(A lot has been said, indeed, "urban myths" arose in a couple of cases, as to how Porsche met the minimum.

(Porsche's own story: Porsche "'had all the bits and pieces to build 19 more for the homologation,' according to Rico Steinemann, Porsche’s racing manager at the time, 'the FIA then decided, no!'

("'As all of the racing department’s resources were being utilized, the workers to build the cars would have to come from elsewhere.'

("'We put together apprentices, messenger boys, bookkeepers, office people and secretaries,' remembered Steinemann years later. 'Just enough people, taught just enough to put together 25 cars!'" - Source: "40 YEARS OF THE PORSCHE 917," Motorsport PR, official Porsche press release distributed Mar. 9, 2009.

(Author Randy Leffingwell's Porsche Legends not only possesses beautiful photography but has even more on the 917's origination, in "Porsche's" own words, as well as other interesting Porsche historical tidbits, as of the book's August 2002 publication.

Oh, yeah, the rest of the Haywood "early" story . . .

In 1973, driving a Brumos Porsche 911 Carrera RSR (given the 917 story: ironically entered as a prototype because it wasn't homologated), Haywood and Gregg won the Daytona 24 in an upset by besting supposedly "faster, better" 3.0-liter sports prototypes like the (N.A.R.T.) Ferrari 312P, a (factory) Matra-Simca, a (Reinhold Joest) Porsche 908 and a John Wyer Gulf-Mirage.

Haywood saw his and Gregg's Daytona 24 win in 1973 as that which "put my name on the international stage for the first time. It was when everyone really started paying attention to me," the overall Daytona 24 win leader said recently.

Haywood eventually added another four Daytona 24 victories to a longstanding record five that only now is being directly challenged by Scott Pruett, who has four wins overall (and five others in-class).

Although believing his name was thrust into worldwide circulation after his 1973 Daytona 24 win, people surely had started taking notice of "Haywood" by that time, he having won five "sprint" races during the preceding two seasons.

Among another three Daytona 24 podiums (1st, 1975; 3rd, 1976; 1st, 1977) Haywood would win an additional eight races among 24 total podium finishes in the series' following years before he'd go to Le Mans for the first time in 1977, winning at Circuit de la Sarthe with co-drivers Jürgen Barth and Jacky Ickx in the No. 4 Martini Porsche 936 (#77 001).

In a touch of irony, the fellow who "discovered" Haywood, "Peter Perfect," placed third in that year's 24 Heures du Mans (with co-drivers Jacques Borras and Claude Ballot-Lèna in a privateer Porsche 935).

Later,

DC

IT’S TIME

DAYTONA BEACH – Search the world for an opinion as to the one culture considered to have the most persistent romantically inclined males and, hands down, Italians rule.

Substitute "sports car" for "romance" in a similar search for "the most" or "the best" and, again hands down, Italians rule.

It seems only natural that an Italian appreciative of both worlds would wax metaphorically, as if the two actually were one, while he stood highest on the 1998 Rolex 24 At Daytona Victory Lane podium.

"For many years I think, 'Daytona doesn't love me,'" a suave, salt-and-pepper-haired, 50-something Italian male said in halting English about a race in the pursuit of which he had spent enough money to perhaps have bought not just one Rolex, but Rolex itself.

"I said, 'Well, Daytona is like a woman, I try again and again.'"

Having just won a race he'd been pursuing on and off for nearly 30 years, the Italian's win in a Ferrari 333SP likewise plied a 500-lb. winless-at-Daytona monkey from the back of Italian sportscar-maker Ferrari, who hadn't won at the famed track since another Italian, Lorenzo Bandini, and New Zealander Chris Amon won in it 1968 while driving a Ferrari 330P4.

A cheering throng, chanting "Moretti! Moretti!" had gathered around Daytona International Speedway's victory podium while Gianpiero Moretti wasted little time in fastening a new Daytona Cosmograph to his wrist (unlike today's winners who stiffly stand while photographers almost endlessly snap pictures of drivers displaying watches in boxes, "Right hand here; left hand there. That's right, just like everyone else," a brand manager endlessly coaches).

The watch secure to his wrist, the chant gave way to raucous victory cheers when Moretti thrust his fist into the air, co-drivers Mauro Baldi, Arie Luyendyk and Didier Theys heartily celebrating, backslapping their team owner -- who for the moment celebrated as much as might have Gaius Julius Caesar in claiming Rome after crossing the Rubicon.

Moretti wasn't interested in winning just any DIS race -- for in 1980, driving with Reinhold Jöst in a Porsche 935J, he'd won the season-ending sprint race at Daytona -- it was the Rolex 24 Moretti had fervently pursued and, in so doing, had grown a little older, a little slower and tired more easily.

Noting his weaknesses as much as his strengths, after wheeling two Saturday race stints Moretti handed the 1998 Rolex 24's Saturday night and early Sunday shifts to his three younger drivers.

On Sunday afternoon, with victory in sight, though, Moretti wanted to take the checkered flag and, most of all, drive the MOMO Ferrari into DIS' Victory Lane.

With just under an hour remaining in the race and the team having reversed an early race 18-lap deficit to a net eight-lap gain over second-place Rohr Motorsport's 911 GT1 Evo, team manager/part owner Kevin Doran called Baldi in for the car's final pit stop and driver change, whereupon Moretti climbed in with 50-minutes to go.

"This is a feeling I want to have. I want to see a picture of my car, me in the car in Victory Lane in Daytona," Moretti emphatically said after the 711-lap race. Clearly, he felt it was something he'd earned and wasn't about to blow the opportunity.

Fielding a reporter's following question, Moretti responded: "You ask me what I want to win, here or Le Mans? The answer is easy; if I win Le Mans, I will be happy." Then, raising his arm for all to see the Rolex on his wrist, he said, "No doubt, the Rolex is what I want. It has been my desire. Today, I did it!"

Moretti, having previously tried and failed 15 times to win the Rolex 24, was asked if he'd return for another go in 1999, so that he might have a Rolex for each wrist.

"I'm 58 in two months, it's time . . ." Moretti said, words failing him at that moment and his eyes welling with emotion.

Those who well knew Moretti were aware beforehand that the '98 race likely was his final Rolex 24 At Daytona. He was tired.

They knew that had Moretti not won he would at least know his best effort had been given, even if it meant defeat, as is sometimes the case in love for a woman. Indeed, some later opined, it may well have been his recognition of that being his last Daytona try; a soul-calming acceptance and resignation that made the win possible.

Finally, even though at times exasperated beyond despair in the past, he in 1998 would win the chase for his "love."

Moretti was a man of class, a man of his word and served well as the very definition of "gentleman racer" or, for that matter, "gentleman," alone.

On Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012 -- just two weeks shy of the 50th Anniversary of the race he loved and which 14 years ago finally loved him back -- gentleman Gianpiero Moretti passed.

"It's time . . ."

Later,

DC

AIN’T NO WAY!

Now that fait accompli is Lady Gaga in Times Square on New Year's Eve having had a ball with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is it too late to publish a 2011 "best" list?

Inasmuch as many astute motorsports journalists have already published top-10 lists focusing on various series and within which its "best" drivers, teams and etc., your humble scribe feels only somewhat compelled to do the same.

Thus, he digresses a bit with his simple yet distinctly complex, "AIN'T NO WAY!" Awards, the occurrence of that which follows being entirely haphazard.

After finally settling a reported monetary squabble originating in 2001 -- whether it hallucinatory, paid, forgiven or forgotten -- the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series' 2010 return to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin's Road America race track was delayed until 2011 (something had to give when vociferous cries arose for a "West Coast" race upon such being omitted with the 2010 schedule's original release).

After finally arriving in cheese-head land and those angered, roaring race car engines having since fallen silent, most everyone likely thought the race's highlight was Gunter Schaldach and Joe Foster taking wing at the 4-mile road course's Turn One perimeter.

Schaldach having flown his No. 07 TheCoolTV Camaro beyond it, while Foster, having been gently extracted from his No. 40 VisitFlorida.com Mazda, was soon thereafter flying, too -- albeit in a hospital-bound helicopter.

While it was the kind of crash that makes onlookers cringe and sponsors cheer (exposure, exposure, exposure) and women swoon, your scribe deigns to disagree that "flying" surprise trumped all else at Road America's 2011 Rolex Series race.

Nope, the race's biggest surprise started coming together when No. 31 Whelen Engineering Corvette regular driver Boris Said temporarily booked it to Fairytale Land, alternately known as California or "The Left Coast," so as to compete in a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

(Should anyone think Greece and the Euro to be a big deal, just wait 'till the un-Golden State implodes.)

Thus short one of its "A-Team" drivers, Marsh Racing paired John Heinricy with its "other" A-driver, Eric Curran.

An engineer and a retired GM High Performance Vehicles director who over the years has squeezed in a couple-hundred-or-so car races, The HeinRocket didn't disappoint, placing the unfamiliar Corvette on the race's second row.

Upon Heinricy's race-shift conclusion, co-driver Curran was presented with a healthy car for a finishing push that ended at the absolute front of the Rolex Series' Road America Grand Touring field.

Considering the team had in nine 2010 races (missing the Rolex 24, HMS and DIS 2) averaged a 14.4 finish and, though albeit better, a 9.6 average finishing position in 2011's five races prior to Road America, thus emerged was one of 2011's biggest surprises, barely edging "Ain't No Way!" second-place finisher Team Sahlen.

AIN'T NO WAY!

Coincidentally occurring at the same track, Road America, and the same race, the Rolex Sports Car Series Driven by VisitFlorida.com, Nonnamaker Racing's three Sahlen-sponsored Mazda RX-8 cars, lacking relative straight-line speed, had to lean heavily on carving and cutting the famed 4-mile Road America course into bits and pieces, not unlike a butcher at work.

"We came in here (Road America) concerned about our being down on power, especially with this track's long straights, so we concentrated on getting the car to turn," team engineer Catherine Wallace said after Wayne Nonnamaker and his No. 42 Sahlen Mazda RX-8 scored his first top qualifying spot since a 2004 SGS (defunct) class pole at Daytona International Speedway.

Employing a deft pit strategy during the 13-lap, 50-minute caution that followed Gunter Schaldach's No. 07 TheCoolTV Chevrolet Camaro's tangle with Joe Foster's No. 40 VisitFlorida.com Mazda RX-8, the team's newly enlisted MazdaSpeed Ladder driver John Edwards -- who too often fails to appear on "best driver" lists not because he isn't -- drove the No. 42 Mazda to a second-place finish fewer than 6/10ths of one second behind winner Eric Curran's No. 31 Whelen Corvette.

AIN'T NO WAY!

Third in the most-competitive-to-date Ain't No Way Awards (even if this be the first ANWA) is a team that over the last two seasons scored back-to-back, fourth-place GT team championship finishes but still was mostly, if not completely shuttered at 2011's end.

For 2010, James Gué and Leh Keen teamed to drive the newly formed No. 41 Team Seattle/Global Diving & Salvage Mazda RX-8.

Harbored in Norcross, Ga., along with Dempsey Racing's No. 40 VisitFlorida.com Mazda RX-8 sister car, the team was comprised mostly of new-to-Dempsey personnel who, in only their second race, would score a podium finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Though all Mazda RX-8s labored in 2011 relative to 2010's rules, a well-prepared car, devoted pit work and a mighty fine pit-side folding table, atop which the No. 41's engineer, crew chief and team manager toiled, Gué and Keen, on their way to a fifth place in the GT driving championship, delivered 11 top-10, six top-5 and four podium finishes that first season, capped by an unforgettable Crown Royal 250 win at Watkins Glen International -- Dempsey Racing's first in the Rolex Series.

After 2010's trophies were distributed in Las Vegas, 2009 GT-champion Keen, for some odd reason, opted for Brumos Racing's hallowed ground for the 2011 season.

Staying put at Dempsey for 2011, Gué was joined by up-and-coming 23-year-old Dane Cameron, who's compiled multiple rookie-of-the-year awards and as well as championships, simultaneously collecting both in the 2007 Star Mazda season.

After the Mazda RX-8 platform claimed 4-of-5 and 6-of-10 of corresponding 2010 Rolex Series GT team championship's top spots, a manufacturer's title and top driver awards, Grand-Am here and there massaged a few rule book words and, viola (Italian for "wah-lah," Menego; ask Max), a "more competitive GT environment" emerged for 2011. Restated: A similar Mazda RX-8 traffic jam atop the GT championship ladder wasn't particularly desired for 2011.

Indeed, Mazda scored only 3-in-5 and 4-in-10 of the final top-10 team championship spots, yet the No. 41 of Cameron and Gué conjured precisely the same fourth-place end of year team championship as had it in 2010.

The third-highest ranked of eight Mazda GT teams in 2010, the Cameron and Gué-led team improved by one spot to finish second best of the eight Mazdas competing in 2011.

Insofar as the 2011 drivers' championship was concerned, Gué and Cameron actually finished one spot better than did Gué and Keen -- fourth vs. fifth, respectively.

Though more occurred behind the scenes than does meet the eye above, walking papers ultimately were handed to a group of otherwise very talented people.

A necessary thing, ego, but never so important that in its maintenance all else should fail.

AIN'T NO WAY!

Honorable Mentions:

For the 2010 Rolex Sports Car Series season Autohaus Motorsports poked its GT nose out of the shop door only five times -- a few as a Pontiac GTO.R; a couple as a Camaro.R -- and finished a best 11th place at the season-ending Tooele, Utah race.

Something good must've happened in the offseason -- perhaps the team acquiring the driving services of Jordan Taylor and Bill Lester -- because the team by the 2011 season's end was leading a tight championship battle having only a five-point spread among the top-3 contenders as the Rolex Series arrived at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

The championship was Autohaus' to lose which, in a gut wrenching single-car spin at Mid-O's wicked, three-turn complex just before pit straight, it did.

Autohaus, Lester and Taylor would lose the team and driving championships by two points, respectively, to Brumos Racing and its drivers, Andrew Davis and Leh Keen.

No matter who; no matter how, it had to hurt, and badly so.

Speaking of First-Year, Championship-Winning Teams . . . They aren't supposed to accomplish as much; "developing" for "next year" usually being the song sung.

Sure, any race team wants to win. A race car driver worth his or her salt truly believes such will happen, in fact.

The reality is that a first-year team has a lot of kinks to shake out and while one might do well here and there, the idea of winning a championship mostly is fodder for jokes and sarcasm because few debuting teams will climb so high as the pinnacle in Year No. 1.

Or, so such is supposed to be and which the Brumos Racing team evidently ignored, never mind altogether disproving in 2011.

Yet, early in 2011 it was a point this writer hardly had considered yielding, especially after the season's third race at Barber Motorsports Park, before which Brumos scored fifth and seventh-place finishes at Daytona International Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway, respectively.

After the Rolex Series had called it a day, Ol' DC remained afterward to watch Friday's final Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge practice from BMP's picturesque Turn 2-3 complex.

Upon its end and a return to the Rolex Series' paddock Ol' DC found himself surprised to be strolling along a string of mostly closed haulers, excepting one.

Parked perpendicular to the team transporter's rear, Brumos Racing's iconic No. 59 Porsche GT3 Cup car sat in the paddock roadway, flanked on the driver's side by a shoulder-to-shoulder Brumos crew that, other than being neatly aligned and handling all manner of pit side essentials, appeared fully prepared to party hardy.

Filling the surrounding air were no fewer than a half-dozen different conversations, from which laughter occasionally arose, nearly all of the assembled crew seemingly oblivious as to the reason for their being there.

A first stab at a pit stop practice lasted all of about 8 seconds before Joe LaJoie called for everyone to get serious and at least try to make good another following attempt.

And another.

All took next-to-forever, according to Ol' DC's stopwatch -- really, it's right there on the watch's face, between "Sometime Today" and "Eternal Damnation" -- and they hadn't even attempted a driver swap.

A couple-more similar record-setting attempts set off Ol' DC's stomach, which commenced growling, "feed me!" and in the pursuit of satiating he proceeded to saunter away.

After Brumos' Saturday race finish of 20th overall and 10th in class it wasn't really too hard to imagine that the team in 2011 would do exactly what so many other teams had done in the past: "prepare" for a following year by "getting experience" and learning where to "improve weak points."

So much for "imagination."

Later,

DC