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