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The 24 Hours of Daytona - What An Experience!
Feb 10, 2009The Rolex 24 hours of Daytona has come and gone and it lived up to its expectation as the greatest sports car race in North America.
I can now say that I have lived out a dream.
All of us on the team --drivers and crew-- came into Grand Am's season opener and North America's most prestigious sports car race as rookies.
The 24 hour is a long race, but not half as long or excruciating as the suspense in the months, weeks and days leading up to the green flag.
In an effort to stagger the work load between us 4 drivers, I adopted an opposite sleep schedule, sleeping in until late afternoon and staying awake until dawn 2 weeks leading up to the race. With 4 drivers you expect everyone will do 6 hours worth of running. I ended up doing 5 of my 6 hours during the night hopefully, helping the other drivers get an extended sleep between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.
I woke up an hour into the race to news that everything had gone remarkable well. Jeff Westphal (teammate) qualified the car just 0.4 seconds off the lead Pontiac. All of the Pontiacs struggled at Daytona carrying an extra weight of +300 lbs. The heavier weight meant the Pontiacs had low top speed, which on such a fast circuit could not be made up on the brakes (which is the car's strength.)
During the opening of the race Westphal had advanced our car from its 21st starting position up into the top 15. Thomas Merrill kept the car up the charts through his stint. It was in the fourth hour of the race just as Al Salvo got in the car for the first time under yellow conditions when lightning struck. As the cars took the restart they all bunched together and a Prototype looked to make an inside pass around 3 GT cars into corner 3. The 'optimistic' pass resulted in the front end of the Prototype making contact with the right rear wheel of Salvo as he turned into the corner.
The damage was significant and required a trip to the garages to work on the needed repairs. For the next hour the PR1 Motorsports crew worked flawlessly to get the damaged parts replaced and the car 're-aligned' to rejoin for the remaining 20 hours.
The incident was disheartening because we felt the best way for us to have a good result was to run without mistake and avoid downtime in the garage. But that incident was beyond our control. That said it was now more important then ever that we don't make any mistakes.
Dropping back to 25th in class (43rd overall) Salvo returned to action and ran flawlessly. At about 8:30 pm I got in for my first shift. Right away the engine would cut out momentarily on the exits of corners and then come back in upsetting the rear end rather violently. The team tried to trouble shoot the problem over the radio, but I still had to be called into the pits several times to address it. The issue turned out to be a failing 'shift-without-lift' sensor. With consistent times I pulled a double stint bringing the car in for a driver change at 10:30 p.m., but not before getting the car back up to 19th in class (35th overall) position.
After that first stint it was quite rewarding to get out and see that we had begun to gain back ground. A couple of the guys were having comfort issues with the car so I prepared myself to do short turnaround shifts. I would get back to the motor home have a quick shower and then eat as big a meal as I could force down and then stretch to keep from tightening up. Then it was pretty much time to get back to pit lane where we would be for the 45 minutes leading up to the next driver change.
From 1:15 am until about 3:30 am I was back behind the wheel of the #32 Miracle Sealants/Konica Minolta Pontiac. It was rather un-eventful during that time, but I do remember one distraction where one of the other GT cars was having trouble with headlights/electrical system. He was driving behind me with his lights going from flashing to off, flashing to off.
At around 4am I had a very unique and memorable moment. I had just completed my 2nd double stint and was walking back to the motor home. I looked around, the night was at its darkest and I was feeling quite tired from the shift I had just completed and knew that very shortly I would be back in the car. That's when it sunk in that this is the Daytona 24 hour and there was still half a race left to do, regardless of how I felt.
Thankfully Salvo was able to do a double stint which gave me an extended break to get 20 minutes of sleep on pit lane before getting in.
It is expected that incidents come as dawn nears and as such at 6am on my 1st lap under green a 3 car accident occurred in turn 6. I was the 5th or 6th car to come to the accident and so the other cars were blocking my view into the corner, at first the cars ahead looked like they had just ran wide and so I took my normal line. Once I had poked my nose around the car ahead I saw the spun out car 100 yards ahead at a dead stop. It was close but thankfully it did not end our race.
I came into the pits just before 7:30 am handing the car over to Westphal in 13th position. All in all it was the night we needed to have; we were back running and put the incident behind us. I was feeling really tired after those runs and hoped that a few hours of sleep would help me reset and be ready for a shift near the end of the race.
It was noon and the car was running up in 11th position when I got the call to return and run the final leg of the race. It was still uncertain if Merrill could do a double and how the yellow flags would influence the timing of the driver change. Sometime during the morning hours the PR1 Pontiac GXP-R had lost functioning of its 2nd gear, but it hardly slowed the car's pace.
I was grateful that the guys had built up such a lead (5 laps) over the car behind me. With 60 minutes to go and the car in front 12 laps ahead my job was simple; finish in one piece.
Sounded simple enough, but simple is not exactly racing. Somewhere in the last hour a piece of debris thrown from another car dislodged the rear bumper. Adding to the excitement was the closest finish in history in the Daytona Prototype class. With the 4 lead Prototypes separated by less then 5 seconds for the final 45 minutes there were plenty of close calls in the closing stages of the race.
Before I got into the car I saw their race setting up on the TV so I knew how hard they would be pushing. I asked the team to give me notice when they were coming around. Given our situation it wasn't time I was worried about loosing. When they came by the first time I remember lifting a good 500 feet before the normal braking point and was on the very outside to make sure there was no confusion and I kept from being collected. After that they kept catching me in turn 6 where I just stayed tight on exit and made sure they had plenty of room.
It was a tremendous pleasure to drive the car across the finish line and complete our first 24 hour. I don’t want to call it a relief to cross the finish line but a small part of me was pleased that the driving duties for the day were over.
It was just such a great experience knowing that I got to compete in such a historic race and that we did well. I'm super grateful to Miracle Sealants, Konica Minolta, Dynacor Media group & Earth Water for their support in this effort and want to thank PR1 for their dedication & hard work as well."
For more information on Forest visit www.mikeforestracing.com
For more information on PR1 Motorsports visit www.PR1motorsports.com
& Information on the Grand Am Rolex series can be found at www.grand-am.com
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