Daytona 24 Hours 2012 Preview


This weekend sees the 50th anniversary of the Daytona 24 Hours, America’s equivalent to “Le Mans”. It’s notable for two things:

1. The usual “24 minutes” display, held on Saturday morning, will feature many past winners of the race and that alone should make the event a “must” for enthusiasts to visit;

2. Our local vintage race team, Predator Performance from Largo, in conjunction with Alegra Motorsport of Tampa, have entered a Daytona Prototype to run in the 24 Hours itself. This is a Riley MK1, BMW V8 powered. Driving it will be Brian Johnson, the singer in AC/DC, Byron de Foor, usually seen in a Turbo BMW CSL or one of his two Lola T70s, Jim Pace, a past winner of the Daytona 24 hours and past class winners Elliot Forbes-Robinson and Carlos de Quesada.

Saturday night saw a gathering of the team and friends at Carlos’ new premises in Tampa and very impressive they are too, housing his collection of Porsches, including RSR, 935, 962, K8, Carrera GT, plus many other 356s and 911s, including Carlos’ own GT3, which won the GT class at Daytona some years ago.

There are fourteen DP cars entered this year, including the new “Chevrolet Corvettes” and over forty GT cars so it should be a great race.

Good luck lads! We’ll be watching....