For those of you who follow this form of racing, you may have tuned in to all or some of the 17 hours (out of the total 24) of coverage of the Rolex 24 on SpeedTV and even the Continental Tire Grand-Am 200 was shown on Speed the following week, or you have already read about the race on the various websites, so I won’t make this as much a race report as an assessment of the experience of attending the race weekend. You probably already know the race report, if you had any interest in it, so no need for a 24 hour, lap-by-lap update.
We were briefed by some more experienced friends who had attended the race in the past that the best approach is to buy the Grassroots Motorsports Package, which is available to anyone (on a first-come, first-served basis, without needing to be a subscriber). We did this and our tickets arrived about a month before the race. The tickets included a fenced-in infield parking area, access to a large tent in case the weather turned sour, a Thursday night gathering at Pizzeria Uno across the street from the track, coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts each morning and a Saturday night dinner under the tent. Also, in the tent, was a closed-circuit TV feed to help keep up on the racing action.
We actually arrived in Daytona Beach at a condo we had reserved on the Wednesday before the action and met our friends who had driven over from Marco Island to attend their first-ever professional sports car race. Might as well jump in with both feet and make your first one a 24 hour one!
Thursday morning we made our way to the Grassroots area and walked over to some adjacent bleachers in time for the first Rolex Series Practice. Grand-Am has become much more interesting to BMW fans in the last couple of years, with the Target Chip Ganassi BMW Riley team winning the DP Championship last year and also former Connecticut Valley member Will Turner’s Turner Motorsport M6 competing in the GT Class last year, as well as the PR1 Motorsports M6 that was a part-time runner last year. This year, the Ganassi boys were back (with a two-car effort for Daytona, but will be just one car for the remainder of the season) in their Dinan powered cars as well as the two car effort Level 5 Motorsports cars, also Dinan powered in the DP Class and Turner debuted their new M3 entry, along with the Team PR1 M6 in GT, so there was plenty to keep us interested.
Race fans may know that Daytona completely repaved the tri-oval since the last NASCAR race there last year and it was quite a project. If you haven’t already seen any of the stories, google “Daytona repaving” as it is quite fascinating what you have to do to repave a surface that is banked. Apparently, heavy-duty paving equipment tends to tip over at angles as high as 31 degrees, so they actually had to tie them down with cranes while they were laying the asphalt. This was the first race held on the new surface and records were expected to fall in all classes. The racers were happy to oblige with many cars in each class under the previous track record, once it came around to qualifying Thursday afternoon.
Turning our attention to the Continental Tire Challenge cars, if you couldn’t find enough BMWs to cheer for in Grand-Am, then this was your race to watch. In both the GS and ST classes, BMWs were all over the grid and in ST, they’ve even thrown in a few MINIs for some variety for BMW fans. In fact in GT, BMWs qualified 1st, 2nd and 4th, with nine M3s in the top 15 qualifiers. In ST, the highest 328i was 4th and the best placed MINI was 6th. Still, with 78 entries in the race, exactly 1/3 of the field was either BMW or MINI.
After qualifying for both races was completed, there was night practice on Thursday evening, as well, so there is no shortage of activity on the track. Friday begins with more practice followed after lunch by the Continental Tire Challenge race, a 2.5 hour time limited event. The racing was terrific and for a while it looked as though the Turner boys, using a split strategy near the end looked to be in the catbird seat with Joey Hand turning in an inspired performance (this would be a trend throughout the whole race weekend), but just when it seemed like it was all going to work out in his favor, he started to fade and finished a disappointing 11th, but BMWs finished 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, so you can expect some sort of handicap to be coming down from Grand-Am to slow them down soon. Over in ST, with time running out, a BMW had taken the lead and promptly crashed out of the race, giving the victory back to the pole-sitting VW, and the poor BimmerWorld guys looked like a lock for 2nd, but were beaten out right near the end, but still got a podium 3rd spot.
Saturday dawns and the focus changes to staying awake and keeping your race car running for 24 hours. One thing about a 24 hour race, from the spectators point of view, you have plenty of time to see the race from various vantage points. Both series allow grid walks for the fans, so as we had done on Friday for the Continental Challenge, we were right out in Pit Lane before the start, but this time, we walked over to the tri-oval, climbed up the banking and up a ladder into the outfield stands to watch the start. The grandstands down near the turn-in to Turn 1 offer a very good viewing point and probably the best spot to be, if you want to see the majority of a lap.
We gradually worked our way further down track and finally back into the infield. Dinner in the Grassroots tent was at 6:00 and then the track has fireworks at 10:00 PM, some 6 ½ hours into the race. I had to wonder what it would be like getting into the car for your first stint, in the dark, and then heading down the backstretch trying to find the right turn-in point for the bus stop chicane and then there are fireworks bursting overhead. It would seem distracting, to me.
While many people camp at the track, few stay awake for the entire race, and we were no exception, so after visiting the Budweiser Party Porch on the backstretch to get a different perspective on the bus stop, we decided it was time to head back to the condo for some sleep. Besides, it was getting hard to breath through all the campfire smoke!
Sunday morning, we awoke to clear skies which rapidly fogged in and the race went under caution for about 2 hours, but was under green flag conditions when we arrived back there. Only a few cars looked anywhere near as good as they did when we had last seen them, many had liberal applications of racer’s tape, while others we much lighter, due to missing pieces. And, the race was still only 75% complete!
Watching the different strategies unfold make the race quite fascinating and you try to anticipate what the different teams may be thinking as double-yellow caution periods occur. About 22 hours in, there were still 6 cars on the lead lap and when the checkered flag dropped, there were still four cars on the lead lap, with the Ganassi BMW Rileys one-two and the other two Dinan cars were 8th and 11th.
Things did not turn out so well for GT M3 and M6 entries. The Turner M3 was still running and turning good laps, but had lost so much time in the pits that they could only take 17th, while the M6 was not running, but classified 22nd.
Here a few other things to consider. Both series offer autograph sessions before their races began, but for the Rolex series, the lines form early and run long, with special interest on the front runners in DP, the NASCAR drivers making guest appearances for the race (Jimmie Johnson, Jamie McMurray, Juan Pablo Montoya, AJ Allmendinger) and to a lesser extent, some of the guest IndyCar drivers, but maybe the biggest crowd of all was waiting to get a glimpse of, and an autograph from, Patrick Dempsey.
Many BMW CCA members from around the country were in attendance and it was great to see so many friends outside of Oktoberfest. We had been warned by our “experts” who had tipped us of the ticket package that the weather is usually quite cold at least some of the time during the weekend, and often rain and wind are also present. We had absolutely spectacular weather for the entire weekend and heard more than a few people in conversation say that this may have been the best Rolex ever, as far as weather was concerned, so now, we are spoiled for future events and won’t know whether to bring shorts or parkas.
The racing is terrific, the facility is top notch, as you can imagine, and next year will be the 50th, so what better time to get away from the snow in CT. We highly recommend adding it to your bucket list.
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