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Starworks Motorsports 24 hour effort on pace for a 6th place but ends in the wall

Feb 2, 2010

The 48th instalment of America’s greatest endurance race ended 5 hours short for the #7 Starworks Motorsports squad. Early Sunday morning the BMW-Riley Daytona Prototype struck the start of the wall dividing the pit exit from turn one spitting the car onto the race track. A second later, more damage was added when a Grand Touring car came around the blind 100 km/h corner striking the rear corner of the #7, writing off the car. The team had been running in 9th position at the time and was on pace to finish in 6th place.

The race began under extremely wet conditions with the first 10 laps single file behind the pace car. Lead driver, Ian James worked up through the field and held the lead on laps 56 and 57 just before pitting. As the team worked through the first rotation of driver changes, the car developed an electrical problem. On lap 115 it was diagnosed as a broken alternator.  Pit lane repairs kept the team out of the garage but found themselves down 5 laps to the leader.

As darkness set in, the team had another tough moment when Dion Von Moltke found himself helpless as a Prototype car spun in front of him and struck the left side. The resulting damage forced the mechanics to the garage to fit a new splitter, front, side and rear body work and repair the damaged left front suspension. After a quick 30 minute repair, the team was now down 25 laps to the leaders.

Mike Forest got in the car a second time shortly after the incident at midnight - 8 & ½ hours into the race - to perform a double stint (roughly 2 hours) beginning the team's march back up through the field. Through the night all the drivers rotated to through and move the car from 32nd up to 17th overall. As Forest began his second double stint at 5:30AM the sun rose and Sunday began with a positive outlook. They were running comparable lap times to the lead Daytona Prototypes. Forest got out at 7:45am with the car in 13th place overall; 9th in the Daytona Prototype classifications.

At 10:30am Dion overtook a car for 12th position overall just before pitting. Beginning the second half of his stint, he left the pits on new (but cold) tires and the car ran wide on the track re-entry lane, striking the beginning of a dividing wall that separates the re-entry lane from the turn 1 apex. This same crash has caught out the best of drivers many times. The damages sustained were too significant to overcome and forced the team to retire. Their run ended roughly 19 hours into the race - they had completed 549 laps (3,127km’s). They finished in 12th position in the Daytona Prototype class and 27th overall.

“Between my two long runs over night I went to the motor home and got an hour sleep. I got back to pit lane just in time for an earlier than expected next shift. I probably wasn’t awake more than 15 minutes before I found myself out on course going 300km/h!” Forest said. “It is a gruelling race; almost equivalent to driving across Canada in 24 hours! I must thank the team for their efforts and everyone who has supported me and my racing career. It’s a dream to be able to compete in this famous race against top Formula 1, NASCAR, Le Mans and INDY drivers from around the world".

The race winning team was the Action Express team who completed 755 laps around the 5.7km course in the 24 hour timed race. The winning drivers included Ryan Dalziel, who will team up with Forest for the remainder of the season in the #8 Starworks Motorsports BMW-Riley. The next race will be held at Homestead-Miami Speedway March 6th.

Schedule/TV Times

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