Story by Rodger HawleyEvery year the challenge of racing for 24 Hours straight around the 3.56 mile road circuit in Daytona Beach Florida is just too much fun to miss. For the last 15 years I have been lucky enough to be a part of this great race. For the last couple of years I have found myself saying that this might be my last time – this year was totally different. Even before this years race was finished I was starting to plan what next year might hold in store. But I am jumping ahead of our fantastic, yet not quite what we wanted 24 Hour race from this year.

We ended up getting a lot more TV coverage than we expected when the car caught fire and became a high light of the race footage that was run often as a recap of the race during the live telecast. Ironically, this year before the race I had decided that most people to do not even recognize our car during the TV segments so I had a 3 foot long by 18 inch tall ORBIT logo on both quarter panels in yellow on a dark blue background that jumped off the car. So when the TV cameras zoomed in on the car as it burst into a spectacular 20 foot flame the ORBIT logo was right were I wanted it, but not in the situation I was hoping for. Good news is that the driver was unhurt and was able to drive to the pit lane entrance where fire crews were stationed which limited the damage- actually the car was barely damaged by the fire but the flames burned through some fuel lines and some engine wiring which meant we had to retire the car after 16 hours of racing.

Testing and qualifying starts on Thursday and right from the time we unloaded the car it was fast. After practicing and making some changes to the setup we knew the car was very good but with so many other fast cars and professional drivers competing in our class we did not make any predictions on what qualifying would hold for us. In addition to the excellent drivers in our class there is also the challenge of racing the Porsche against the purpose built tube frame race cars that are built specifically for Grand Am racing. Qualifying saw us finish 6th out of 30 GT cars with a lap time of 1:49.831 , the second Porsche on the grid.

For the most part the rest of the time until the start of the race was calm and very much ordinary. We had a couple of drivers that needed to get in some laps before the race so we ran in the remaining test sessions before the race start and spent the time in between getting the car ready for the race. By the end of the day Friday everybody was comfortable with the car and all the race components were installed on the car.

Saturday – Race start 3:30 pm- it is raining. Rain is the great equalizer, it removes any advantage one car may have over another and puts the competition squarely on the shoulders of the driver. I was feeling pretty good. We had one of the fastest drivers in the world, Johnny Mowlem, in our car and we had a heated windscreen that was working. Johnny is from England, racing in the rain is second nature to him and we would for sure have a big advantage. The race started under yellow flag conditions, meaning they let the field go for a few laps following the pace car so everbody could determine how wet the track was and give everybody a chance to acclimate to these difficult conditions. The race started and by the first corner Johnny had passed a couple of cars – now all we had to do was keep this up for another 23 hours and 59 minutes , another 700 or so laps.

I don’t remember exactly but it seemed after about 5 laps Johnny radioed that the car felt strange, he brought it in and we found a puncture in the right rear tire. From there we experienced some ups and downs and quite a few more challenges for both drivers and crew. Every hurdle was met with great effort from everybody involved and right before the fire we found ourselves down about 15 laps to the leader. It was clear that we would probably not win the race but we had persevered and it seemed a respectable finish was with in our grasp. In the end the fire took us out the race but it did not take away the enjoyment that we all felt putting this program together and getting it to the track. “That is racing”, “You can’t always get what you want”, “Shit happens” - all of these great quotes must have come from people that spent time at the race track. Trying to explain what it takes to win the 24 Hours of Daytona I tell people that I would rather be lucky than fast, and this year I was able to painfully demonstrate the truth behind the words. Right after the race I was talking to Lance Willsey, car owner, great guy, who ran his fastest laps ever at Daytona during the race. I told Lance that I learned a lot this year, more that I ever could have expected after doing some many 24 Hour races. I could not answer with anything specific, although to myself I was thinking, “ wait until next year and I will show you”.

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