Feature: Daytona The Birthplace of Speed

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Text: The Consultant
Images: Rolex/Stephan Cooper

What is the 24 Hours of Daytona about? Well, to look at that we need to go back quite a few years, to the previous century in fact. It starts with the fact that Daytona is in sunny Florida, and has a beach – a beach that boasts of long stretches of hard-packed sand, making the surface ideal for speed runs. It started with a wager, as it tends to do, between two gentlemen arguing about who owned the faster horseless carriage. One thing led to another, and soon Daytona Beach became the place to hold speed trials – so much so that it got named ‘The Birthplace of Speed.’ Many people who rose to fame later in life started at Daytona. Ransom E. Olds, who went on to establish REO and Oldsmobile, was the first man to race on the beach in a timed run. Other famous persons involved in speed trials included Henry Segrave and Campbell. Speed trials ended in 1935, as the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah became the preferred venue. However, stock car racing on the beach began the following year, and a local mechanic by the name of Bill (William) France entered the inaugural race on March 8, 1936 and finished fifth.

When Bill France hung up his boots in 1946, he got into the business of promoting stock car racing. He founded NASCAR in 1947, NASCAR being the acronym for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. However, by 1953, France realised that racing on the beach road-course would soon end because of the demand for real estate – required for housing estates. So, he put in a proposal to construct a permanent speedway facility. The resulting Daytona International Speedway is located approximately one mile east of I-95 on U.S. Highway 92 (West International Speedway Blvd.), four miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and 45 miles north-east of Orlando, of Disney World fame. Constructed at an initial cost of approximately $3 million (then), the motorsports facility has been in continuous operation since 1959. The entire property, which includes the track site, offices and parking area covers approximately 480 acres, while the infield, which has the 3.56-mile road course, on which the 24 Hours of Daytona is run, comprises of 180 acres and includes the 29-acre Lake Lloyd, which was formed by digging the earth to make the banking.

While the Daytona International Speedway is operated by International Speedway Corporation, a publicly held company founded by William H.G. and Anne France in 1953, the sanctioning body of the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona is the Grand American Road Racing Association, or GARRA.

The Daytona Prototype cars that are found competing in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona and in the Rolex Series form a special class of cars that were developed exclusively for racing at Daytona according to a formula adopted by GARRA. Before the advent of the DP (Daytona Prototype) cars in 2003, cars with open cockpits (spyders), based on Le Mans prototype (LMP) cars, used to race. But, as they were deemed to be too fast and dangerous for the Daytona course, which had concrete walls in the fastest sections, GARRA put in place new regulations regarding the design of the car – resulting in a shorter length, and a snub nose that prevented the cars from being overly fast. GARRA also decided to keep costs down, which meant that the cars would have to be constructed more conventionally, and not employ expensive carbon fibre. In addition to that, constructors and engines used in the DP cars would be regulated. Daytona Prototypes are produced to similar specifications by five approved constructors – Riley Technologies, Dallara, Crawford Race Cars, Coyote and Lola. A Daytona Prototype chassis costs between $400,000 (Rs. 1.8 crores) and $550,000 (Rs. 2.5 crores), but the cars have been raced in their current configuration for several years within Grand-Am’s stable rules package. As of 2009, Daytona Prototype constructors can choose from seven engine manufacturers – including the likes of Porsche, BMW, Ford and Honda – for their 500bhp engines. Five or six-speed sequential gearboxes from EMCO and Xtrac are the series standard in Daytona Prototypes. Smaller-engined Daytona Prototypes, under 4.5 liters, are allowed the advantage of the six-speed gearboxes, while all race cars with larger engines must run the five-speed. Plus, Daytona Prototypes with engines under 4.0 liters must weigh a minimum of 2,225 pounds, and cars with larger engines must weigh a minimum of 2,275 pounds. So, in essence, if one compares it to an LMP car, a DP car is smaller, cheaper, and easier to construct with adequate performance, though not comparable with an LMP car.

The driver with the highest number of wins at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona is Hurley Haywood with five victories in 1973, 1975, 1977, 1979 and 1991. Haywood also holds the record for the highest number of starts in the race – totalling 36. The manufacturer with the largest number of victories at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona is Porsche with 21. The next best manufacturers are Ferrari and Ford with just five wins each, Lexus (three times), followed by Jaguar, Chevrolet and Nissan with two wins each.

The 48th running of the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona

When Qualifying for the 48th running of the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona came to a close at 3:45 pm. on Thursday, the 28th of January 2010, it was Massimiliano ‘Max’ Angelelli (Monaco) with teammates Wayne Taylor (USA) and Pedro Lamy (Portugal) in the #10 Sun Trust Racing Porsche/Dallara who took pole position in the Daytona Prototype class with a time of 1:40.6. For Angelelli, it was especially meaningful, being an Italian driver in an Italian car (Dallara) on Italian tires (Pirelli), wearing an Italian OMP racing suit.

In the GT class, with a time of 1:49.2, (which is a pointer towards the difference in performance between the GT and DP cars) Jeff Segal (USA) took the pole in a Mazda RX-8. Segal’s pole-position time set a new track record for the GT class.

The question was, however, would the qualifying performances be an accurate indicator of race pace over 24 hours? The green flag was to be given at 3:30pm on Race day, and weather forecasts had predicted rain for the early hours of what is always an extremely challenging race.

As predicted, while the race crews were busy preparing their cars for the start of the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, and drivers were signing autographs, clouds were forming – the thunderstorms looked to be right on schedule. By the time the pre-race ceremonies started, the rain was coming down hard and when Grand Marshal, Vic Elford, gave the command “Gentlemen, Start Your Engines,” it was a downpour.

The rain meant the race had to be started behind the pace car. After lap five, the field was shown the green flag, and cars charged into turn one side-by-side, despite heavy water on the track. Two hours and 53 laps later, the DP class had seen five leadership changes.

The Rolex 24 at Daytona is never uneventful – racing incidents and mechanical failures are to be expected. Around midnight, driver changes and pit work became routine for most teams, while those cars that spun or had contact with moving or stationary objects, of course, lost precious time in the pits making repairs. The crew members who persevered in the pits servicing the cars – during routine stops or in performing Herculean repairs in the least possible amount of time, rarely get the share of praise and admiration which they deserve for putting aside their exhaustion to work through the night to maintain their machines.

The Daytona 24 Hours is unlike most 24 hour races because, being held in winter, the nights are very long. So when dawn arrived more than 13 hours of driving had already taken place under the lights. By this time, there had been 45 lead changes, and over 1,765 miles driven. The morning was eagerly anticipated – to see what condition the field would be in after a torturous night.

At 5:30am, the action was as intense as it would be at any point during the race. The dense air being full with the sound of screaming engines along the front straight and the melodic and rhythmic sound of up shifting and downshifting cars as they negotiated the infield turns. Max Papis in the #01 Telmex BMW/Riley was leading overall, while Andrew Davis was leading the GT Class in the #57 Stevenson Automotive Group/Bryan Mark Camaro GTR – very different from the starting order, but not entirely unexpected.

Endurance races are a test of resistance to wear and tear, and both machines and men were showing ample signs of it. Electrical issues had hit the pole-sitting #10 Sun Trust Ford/Dallara, which in any case was on its fourth gearbox, and a replaced half shaft. Teams were concentrating on holding their positions for the later hours when they would begin their major push in the closing stages in hopes of a podium finish.

As the 24th hour drew nearer, teams went into preservation mode, planning their strategy for the closing moments of the race. Preservation of the machines is paramount, because, as they say, to finish first, you have to first finish. The last hour at the Rolex 24 at Daytona is always a nail biter. The tired cars by now have a high propensity for mechanical breakdown, and pit crews are fatigued – giving rise to higher incidences of human errors during even routine stops. The 48th edition of this race had the predictable amount of attrition, but it was hard racing all the way.

With half an hour of racing left, the contest had boiled down to two Cars – the #9 Action Express Racing Porsche/Riley driven by Joao Barbosa of Portugal, and the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing BMW/Riley driven by Scott Pruett from Auburn, California. 15 minutes later, hard-charging Pruett, was only 52 seconds behind the leader. There was every possibility of a yellow flag incident, allowing the field to close up behind the pace car and create a whole new race scenario for Pruett to potentially benefit from – adding to the tension as the race reached its conclusion.

In the end, after 24 thrilling hours of racing, it was Barbosa who crossed the finish line first – just 52.3 seconds ahead of Pruett. The winning #9 Action Express Racing team represented a multi-national effort with four nationalities represented just in the driving line-up alone – Barbosa hails from Portugal; Terry Borcheller from Florida; Ryan Dalziel from Scotland; and Mike Rockenfeller from Germany.

The GT class was a 30-strong field of very competitive cars, of which less than half finished. The race was won by the #70 Speed Source Mazda RX-8 with an all-American team.

Through all the rain and adversity, it was a very fast Rolex 24 at Daytona – records were set for distance with 755 laps completed; there were 53 different lead changes; it was the 22nd overall win for Porsche, and the 16th class win for Mazda. This Super Bowl of Grand Am racing was won by a new team – who started in the rain, and finished in a shower of champagne.