MORE POST-24 NOISE

TAKING IT TO THE LIMIT

"The only person I know who can just look at a car and tell if it'll go fast is Bob Riley." - John Maddox, Roush Yates Engines' sportycar program manager.

Eight times and three different models and the Riley clan still remains supreme as the top Daytona Prototype chassis maker.

A GOOD GUY WINS

No, it shouldn't be news to folks reading this that Jordan Taylor is heading for regular endurance race duty in a Corvette C6.R - especially given the news was released just before the 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 At Daytona.

"The Professor," a University of Central Florida engineering student, is only one of 23 drivers to ever have officially don a Corvette Racing driving suit.

For the 2012 season Paul Edwards has joined Taylor to drive Autohaus Motorsports Camaro GT.R in the Rolex Sports Car Series and in which, with 2011 co-driver Bill Lester, Taylor fell just two-points short of claiming the GT driving title won by Andrew Davis and Leh Keen.

Taylor joins elder 'Vette statesmen Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen in the pretty darn near iconic No. 3 Corvette C6.R.

Longtime followers of The Family Taylor are aware that Shelley Taylor is the family matriarch and provided Jordan and his older brother, Ricky, with their racing DNA, Jordan getting 250,000 more relative racing strands than did Ricky and thus is the reason the former is quicker than the latter.

SECOND IN PERPETIUITY?

Perhaps excited by the prospect of finishing second on a regular basis; perhaps "Knowing" a cryptic something in a constantly repeating "2," Starworks Motorsport -- 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 At Daytona pole sitter and 2nd-place (see?) race finisher -- announced last week it will likely contend for something other than first place as long as it runs a WEC P2 (and there you have it, again) program.

Then again, and even though a WEC P1 program, Peugeot booked it, huh?

So, perhaps, there's one or (dare it be said?) two chances in Hades that the Starworks team might get some well-deserved glory over in the WEC, where P2 ain't exactly at the top of the exposure pyramid.

And that's too bad, because when four of five drivers in one car (not at the same time, Menego) lead a race it tends to speak well of a team -- from shop to checkered flag.

Starworks No. 8 Ford's Ryan Dalziel, Enzo Potolicchio (above, respectively, after 2011 Mid-O win), Allan McNish and Lucas Luhr each would lead one of more laps of the Rolex 24, leaving fifth driver Alex Popow as the only one to be sitting on the edge of that leader pool.

The WEC-only program ". . . all started when Enzo asked Dallara for an out-the-door price for three new cars," Baron said.

Italian design firm Dallara was said to have responded with full-prices and another €1 million-or-so for Gen3 design "services."

If accurate, and though one can understand Dallara's wish to be profitable, that they'd heap upon one buyer a developmental program for prospective future customers without offering a corresponding share of profits is a real head-scratcher.

The other side of the coin might also be that Dallara possibly doesn't feel it can adequately compete against Riley and in an adroit face-saving move (wouldn't be a first) would rather appear to price itself out of the market rather than fess up to an inadequate ability.

Unfortunately, there exists no "Viagra" for chassis designers. That is, that which would be used for the sole purpose of designing a competitive DP chassis.

THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN STRIKEN FROM THE RECORD

According to Baron, Starworks business partner (and Ryan Dalziel's season long co-driver) Potolicchio believed the demanded price was of such magnitude that the team could instead order two Riley DPs and do a WEC car for an entire season.

And that's what they did, while also supposedly ordering another (a third) Gen 3 Riley DP for the 2013 Rolex 24.

"We're not leaving Grand-Am," Baron said, "We'd be crazy to do that in the middle of a points fight."

“THE ABOVE HAS BEEN STRIKEN FROM THE RECORD.”

EDITORIAL NOTE One often hears the preceding – “Strike it!” or variations upon it, like “Move to strike,” in TV and movie legal dramas. You know, where the judge has a cow because a witness or, perhaps, legal counsel went off the deep end and/or inferred, implied, stated hearsay, restated hearsay or, perhaps inappropriately picked a nostril. Then again, maybe such “procedural matters” don’t much happen anymore. After all, your scribe hasn’t seen a legal drama since TV’s Perry Mason (ask your grandfather) and Technicolor (ask the same guy) brought the world Al Pacino’s character, attorney “Arthur Kirkland” in “. . . And Justice For All,” who at one particularly frustrated moment started yelling, “You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order! They're out of order!” and etc., etc., etc.

That’s what Peter Baron did to your now thoroughly humbled scribe, as well as rebuffing the latter’s plea of needed “drama” in an otherwise presently dull motorsports game (really, just how long can we, should we provide exposure for Henri Zogaib?).

Thus, stated anew and, hopefully, in a manner that will make all this a tad more palatable to those directly concerned:

According to Baron, Potolicchio (who is Ryan Dalziel’s season-long co-driver) believed Dallara’s demanded price was of such magnitude that the team could instead order two Riley DPs as well as fund a WEC car for an entire season.

And that's what they did, while also supposedly ordering another (a third) Gen 3 Riley DP for the 2013 Rolex 24.

"We're not leaving Grand-Am," Baron said, "We'd be crazy to do that" inasmuch as the team is in the midst of a points fight – Dalziel, Potolicchio and Popow with 32 points are ahead of (an essentially) third-place David Donohue and Daren Law (26 pt.) by six points, but second to Ozz Negri and John Pew (35 pt.) by three points.

Um, let's see, one race down and already in the midst, huh? Squarely so.

That's one way to look at it. (But, really, any other perspective escapes at present.)

Baron said he believed there was only one end-of-year race conflict and that what the team does at that point will be determined largely by the team's points positions within the respective series.

"We'll just have to see where we stand in the points at that time and figure out what we need do," Baron said.

BACKING UP WITHOUT REVERSE

Yes, yes, everyone might well be getting a tad tired of hearing about A.J. Allmendinger's fabulous 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 At Daytona. Yet, when one does something extraordinary, well, the accolades are deserved.

If any example exists of the kind of zone in which Allmendinger operated during the Rolex 24's waning hours, then it was surely exemplified over two back-to-back laps occurring 20 and 19 laps from race end.

If the reader will remember, a first-place Allmendinger and Michael Shank Racing's No. 60 LiveOn.com Ford was being stalked by Ryan Dalziel and his No. 8 Starworks Motorsport Ford.

Anyone who's watched Scotsman Dalziel since he crossed the pond west to east whilst still wet behind the ears knows the nearly 30-year-old (12 Apr., 1982) and 2012 Rolex 24 polesitter ain't a slacker when at a race car's wheel.

On Lap 730, race-leader Allmendinger was fast approaching the 2.5-hour mark in his three-hour, race-ending shift when while on a green track he was called into the pits to take on enough fuel to make race end, as did a second-place Dalziel.

(By the way: Had the MSR Foxhole Boys -- easily absent of more sleep than anyone else on the team -- missed one little beat, inappropriately dropped something, committed a rules infraction or, perhaps, even tripped over shoelaces during the stop, it's reasonable to assume the LiveOn.com car wouldn't have won.)

Following the stops an eight-second gap between Dalziel and race-leader Allmendinger had quickly narrowed but then stabilized to between five- and six-seconds.

Allmendinger, presumably aware of the narrowed gap, on Lap 741 turned a 1:41.853 (125.83 mph) lap.

He was traveling through Turn 3 (Pedro Rodriguez International Turn) when team leader Mike Shank was radioed for the lap time just cut.

Given a simple answer -- "a 41-853," Shank had shot back -- the 'Dinger was already traveling through Turn 4 (The Kink) when he said, "I'm gonna back it up."

A tired, confused and very old reporter at that moment scratched his head and (thankfully) asked only himself, "What good is it to slow down with Dalziel only 5-seconds behind?"

It took the completion of that consequent lap and a simultaneous though befuddled close study of Grand-Am Timing and Scoring's data feed to understand that Allmendinger's intent was to turn a second, back-to-back lap consistent with its predecessor: a 1:41.659 (126.07 mph).

In the course of two laps roughly 23.5 hours into the Rolex 24 and making like Babe Ruth calling a homerun, Allmendinger would cut back-to-back laps that were fewer than seven-tenths of one second off the race's pole-qualifying time.

Righteous, brother!

(Which is how the Righteous Brothers got their name, by the way . . . though such having nothing to do with lap times, or Allmendinger, for that matter).

Later,

DC

ROLEX 24 BACKGROUND NOISE

“The reason I’m here is because I can go toe-to-toe with guys like Chip Ganassi, Roger Penske, SunTrust and all those guys who have far bigger budgets than me and I can still win. If you want to race and win, this is the place.” – Mike Shank, a regular guy (even though a huge The Ohio State fan) who grew up in a fairly regular home and whose dad – one who lovingly gave his son a start in racing – didn’t get to see his son win a really big one.

Anyone notice SunTrust's "official" race time, which came in at 29:55.123?

Put in another, perhaps more impactful way: 4.877 seconds shy of 30 minutes, that magical round-number mark that, under Grand-Am's General Sporting Rules (GSR), Section 10, sub-section 5 and mini-section 2, defines a time period in which is stated, "A Driver must drive at least 1 lap under green flag conditions within 30 minutes." Never mind the sentence is, um, "lacking," grammatically speaking, because the boys over at One Daytona Blvd. have what's known as "Sole Authority" or, a.k.a., G-A GSR Section 10, sub-section 1, which allows them to do as they wish, when they wish and however they wish (was any angle omitted?).

All considerations of a simple, safe life being put aside your intrepid reporter made inquiry of La Carrera Queso Grande (The Race's Big Cheese), Mark Raffauf, who explained that the time in question was sampled from the start/finish line and that after the SunTrust car passed such line it then traveled very nearly another lap before abandoning the track and pulled into its garage, thereby more than adequately fulfilling the “30-minute rule,” so to speak.

The 2011 Kevin Buckler and Andy Lally split had more than one tongue wagging over the last couple of months at Daytona. Given their combined successes, a lot of people figured they'd have patched their differences come race weekend and again team for the classic endurance race -- one which they, respectively, as owner and driver together twice won in GT.

They didn't patch what became a grudge match (or so said others), the finish of which was close at race end -- a partial tick of just over 9 seconds -- with Lally and his new team, Magnus Racing, claiming GT's first place over a second-place TRG No. 67.

Mindful that misdirection can be a part of strategy and that sleeplessness can impair judgment, it nevertheless is astounding as to how some team members, having formerly taken all manner of closed-mouth precautions, will diagram a race strategy before the world merely because present is a TV lens and a microphone, wielded by someone in a tightly fitted fire suit. Or would that be the reason behind Mata Hari’s success?

"The new Gen3 DP is basically just your old DP" is part of a chorus line making the rounds. Overlooked, for some reason, are areas like the front suspension, where mounting points were moved and therefore require different parts. Or that the wheelbase has been slightly adjusted so that a Gen2 body, even without the cockpit, um, oh, that's right, the (politically correct?) "greenhouse" wouldn't neatly fit a Gen3 chassis. Now, having noted at least two of still further differences: Change ain't no big thing, it's called "evolution." Something the Earth has practiced, well, until 1940-or-so (at least, in the U.S.), for a few billion years. However, some people call a $19,000 Gen3 (not Gen2) splitter “highway robbery.”

ALMS' Scott Atherton put in a full day on the ground Thursday at Daytona, presumably because he liked the racing. No? Then what else might he be doing there? Could it be yet another round of phantom buyout talks? Or, perhaps, just some good, old-fashioned "Good luck!" chatter with former ALMS and present Grand-Am competitors? Oh my gosh! You don't think . . .? Cajoling for the sake of regaining or, perhaps, just stealing about?

David Hobbs finally pronounced the Daytona Prototype a proper-looking race car, "very sleek" and "looks like a modern race car."

Maybe that's why the 197-seat DIS Media Center went into overflow mode on Friday, additional nearby rooms being made available to photographers, media representatives and the ilk. Yet, a good dozen-or-so media types were still seen working from randomly occupied chairs here and there, media lunchroom tables and outside on Fan Zone tables and benches.

The conditions under which we journalists sometimes must labor for our loyal readers . . .

Later,

DC