2007 Daytona 24 Hours

It was that time of year again. End of January in Florida means the Daytona 24 Hours. Although for me the Daytona Prototypes are ugly cars, there’s no doubt that they are strong and effective and have also attracted a lot of NASCAR and road racing stars, which has been all to the good as I have never seen such a large crowd for this race. Why, there were even people in the Grandstands!

This year, Tim and Joe Pendergast invited me to bring a car to drive in the "24 Minutes of Daytona", and the very kind owner of the 1989 "Applebee"-sponsored Spice (see the "Cars for Sale" section) kindly let me have the use of it. This involved the owner’s crew in trucking both that car and the "MOMO"-sponsored March 86G.10 over from the West Coast, so I’m very grateful to them for that.

I arrived at Daytona on Wednesday evening, as I was also invited to attend the American Racing Driver’s annual dinner – a very pleasant evening, highlighted by Michael Keyser’s speech after the meal. Michael, a past winner of the Sebring 12 Hour race and participant of numerous Daytona 24, IMSA and Le Mans races, brought a big laugh to the proceedings when, alluding to his baldness, he stated that it was due to: "Too many U-turns under the sheets!"

"Our" cars arrived on Friday morning and Mike Cook, accompanied by Justin Phillips and Henry Gomez, bled the brakes of the Spice and then warmed up the engine to make sure everything worked. It did.

Saturday morning saw a stellar line up of cars for the demonstration, including the ex-Al Holbert "Lowenbrau"-sponsored Porsche 962, an ex-Dyson 962, the 1979 IMSA Championship-winning Porsche 935, an IROC Porsche, the IMSA Camel Lights-winning Spice Acura, ex Al Holbert Dekon Monza, a 1972 Gulf Mirage coupe plus various others. You can see some of them in the accompanying photos.

We gathered up behind Dave White in the Pace car and a good time was had by all, particularly in avoiding an errant wheel from the ex-Dyson 962!

The race proper started at 1.30 p.m. this year and from midday on, the fans were allowed into pit lane as the cars were wheeled to their grid spots. Alex Gurney, Dan’s son, had taken pole at record speed and there were no less than twenty-eight Daytona Prototypes entered plus about fifty GT cars. It was set to be a good race.

It was. The rains descended throughout the night and, at one point the race had to be stopped and the cars put into Parc Ferme after an accident had severely bent the Armco, necessitating it’s replacement.

At one point, around 8-9 a.m., the top three were nose-to-tail and duking it out with no holds barred, this with still approximately four-and-a-half hours to go.

At the finish it was the Chip Ganassi-entered car of Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Pruett and Salvador Duran that outlasted everyone else to win for Ganassi for the second year running. Juan Pablo now joins Mario Andretti as the only two drivers to have won the Indianapolis 500, a U.S. open wheel Championship and a Formula One race. (Although Mario also won a Formula One championship to boot.)

As you can see from our STOP PRESS feature, I’m very proud that some friends of ours won the GT class in Porsche, just beating the new Pontiac GTO-R.