Sebring – December 4th to 6th, 2009


It was as the blue 1974 3.8-engined RSR “clone” vanished backwards from my sight along the back straight at Sebring, that I realized just how much “poke” (power) the Ferrari Competition Daytona that I was driving had.

Mauro Borella, my old Italian friend, had agreed to join me in driving George Tuma’s bright red Comp. Daytona (thank you very much George) at Sebring for HSR’s last meeting of the year and Sunday was set to finish off with a four hour endurance race there, which Mauro and I were very much looking forward to.

I had seen the Daytona several weeks before, when it first arrived at the Predator Performance shop in Largo, Florida, after coming all the way from California. Very purposeful she looked, with those big wheelarch extensions that the last series of Comp Daytonas used. The four-camshaft V12 engine is surmounted by a big (make that "massive") cold air box.

So I jumped at the chance to drive the big Ferrari at Sebring. Predator took no less than sixteen cars to look after, so their mechanics were ‘legs a blur’ all weekend, not helped by the fact that head honcho, David Hinton, came down with flu on Thursday and took no further part in the proceedings until Sunday. Luckily, he’s a toughie so he recovered quickly, helped by our racing doctor Chris Nussbaum’s ministrations but there’s no doubting it’s a nasty thing to catch.

I drove there and back each day in my recently acquired 1963 Buick Riviera, as my daughter Lisa and her boyfriend Tim had come to visit us. Oh, and we’d acquired another dog, "Boomer" also, so life in the Starkey household was hectic and I found solace in the Buick Riviera. What a great old wagon, not disgraced performance-wise on the roads of today, either.

On arrival on Thursday, we missed the first test session but I asked Mauro to take the second session, whilst I took the third; Mauro came back with eyes aglow. “You cannot believe,” he told me, “how much power this car has got. I followed a red XKE Jaguar onto the back straight and put my foot down. Fourth and fifth gears come as fast as you can change up and he just disappeared backwards! It is amazing, this car.”

So when it came to my turn, I drove out onto the track and signaled all the other cars in our group to go by, as I wanted some time to get to grips with the beast without other cars queuing up behind me. It took just two laps before some of them came backwards at me! To say that I was surprised would be to put it mildly as I’m no ace driver but I overtook several cars without really trying. Oh sure, she was a furniture wagon when going around the hairpin but show her a straight and - Oh my Gawd! - she flew. I was pulling 8,000 rpm in fifth gear into the U-shaped turn seventeen and, for once, I was actually thinking that I might not able to knock off the entry speed in order to make the turn but, of course, being the well-mannered Italian lady that she is, she encouraged me to use a strong pair of hands and wrestle her around onto the front straight. (What does this read like?!!!!)

Braking and handling didn’t appear to be the Daytona’s forte although they were not as bad as I’d feared but you need muscles to horse that baby around! Oh, yes.

Also in our group was Dutch visitor Jan Gijsing, who usually drives a Ferrari 275 GTB in the CER races that George and I drive in, in Europe. Jan was driving George’s Aston Martin DB4 but it developed a clutch pressure plate problem in the first session, which necessitated a gearbox in-and-out job by Predator’s hard working mechanics on Thursday night.

Sadly, Friday and Saturday saw Sebring under a torrential downpour, which eased off in time for Mauro to do the night race, which he enjoyed enormously, even overtaking several much more fancied cars, including 1974 Porsche RSRs. Mauro took second in the “Most improved driver from Thursday to Saturday” prize amongst the corner workers as he’d not raced at the track since, he thought, about 1995 and: “It has changed a bit since then!”

Incidentally, this was the first time that either Mauro or I had worn Hans devices and the Ferrari was not the easiest car to enter or exit. The seat was too high and our helmets almost hit the roof! To exit, I had to wedge my head under the topside bar and give my helmet a whack on the right hand side to pop my head out of the car, whence I could extricate the rest of my body. Not the most comfortable car I’ve driven.

So to Sunday and the four hour race. For a warm up, I took part in the eight lap dash race in the morning but the oil pressure needle sagged into the first right hander and I realized that she was low on oil. I peeled off into the pits and shouted “oil!” at Rick, our mechanic, who put a couple of liters in and off I went, but it wasn't enough. Another stop saw another can going into the engine but by then it was pointless to continue so I drove back to our garage.

Mauro insisted that I start the race as: “You have had no time in the car and I have had two races!” I couldn’t disagree and so joined the line of cars that were ready to go out onto the grid. I don’t think I’ve ever had my photograph taken so many times but of course, it wasn’t me they wanted to photograph, it was the car!

So came the rolling start and the huge grid was off! First corner - bugger! - oil pressure needle sagged again and so in I dived for more oil. Drove out, yes! - oil pressure stayed high. Drove around on my own and then caught up to the rest when a double yellow was waved. Two laps later saw Mauro gesticulating at me to come in (at least, I think that was what he meant!), so shot back into the pits. Of course, being a four-hour race we had to do a mandatory four pitstops of five minutes each, so if you can do at least one under a full course yellow, whilst everyone else is going slowly, you should be in a good position when the lights go green. They did just as I was rejoining the race.

I did a few laps and began to feel quite comfortable and was just lining up to take the left-hander at turn two when-whack! - I was hit hard on my right side and quite literally was knocked onto the grass with all four wheels thereon. I had a brief image as I stopped of a Miller-sponsored Porsche 962, which snaked a little before disappearing around the bend. Thank you for nothing, I thought as I undid my belts and climbed out to look at the damage. I was convinced the door must have caved in on the right hand side.

To my astonishment, when I looked, there was almost no damage! Both front and rear wheelarches had small dents in them and both wheelrims were scratched but, considering the force with which the 962 had unceremoniously shoved me off, I had got away very lightly. I drove back to the pits where Rick checked the Daytona over, found no damage and off I went again. This was turning out to be an eventful race...

We were now off to a decent stint at last and I found myself reveling in the straightline speed of the big Ferrari on the straights, and the right-handed dive down to the hairpin was a sheer delight but the noise! - Wow! When that Ferrari hit 6000 rpm and I accelerated to 8000 rpm, she screamed. I had earplugs in but I double stinted, doing two forty-minute sessions before handing her over to Mauro.

I was deaf when I climbed out of the car. Mechanics and Mauro were asking me questions but, after the Ferrari’s exhausts and with the noise of other cars racing by, I couldn’t distinguish a word. All information was passed by hand signals.

Mauro climbed in and off he went. He was due to do forty-five minutes but, just as I was preparing to take over again, we realized that the Ferrari hadn’t come around when it should have done and word reached us that Mauro was on the side of the back straight, having run out of fuel. That fifteen gallon tank is too small!

Predator’s mechanics rushed off in their golf cart (now that’s an oxymoron) and took fuel out to the stricken Ferrari. Mauro came in, more fuel was added and I got in, belted up and was off again.

There were definitely less cars out there by now, quite a few having retired with various ailments. After about thirty minutes, I was keeping an eye on the gauges when I saw the water temperature start to climb steadily from the 90 degrees that it had held since the start of the race. In the course of two laps, it reached 110 degrees and I slacked off and cruised back to the pits. Oil pressure and temperature were good.

Once in the pits the mechanics checked the engine over but could find nothing outwardly wrong, however, we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and drove it back to the Predator team’s base where, already, most of the other cars had been loaded into the transporters, awaiting the ride back to Largo.

I stayed to chat to Mauro and Jan, who had driven the Aston for two hours, and was quite prepared to do the total four until the clutch problem started again, at which time the Aston was retired.

A great car that Ferrari; a long time since I’ve been so impressed with a car. Interesting (and not surprising) that they had such a great record in the long distance grinds of Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring.