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“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