Daytona 24 2019

In reply to T.J. :

Had they thrown the red a lap or two earlier, the GT would have won. Them are the breaks. 

I guess I'm just surprised they did so many laps under yellow in the rain.  To me it seems like they should either be able to race in the rain, or it should be deemed so bad it's unsafe and go red flag.  I get that there are times there is so much standing water or lack of visibility that it's not feasible/safe, but otherwise I'd think if they can run continuous laps under yellow, they could race to the conditions under green?

I don't claim to be some rain driving expert, and I get that the risks are elevated, but to me it just seems like that's part of the game in something deemed an endurance challenge.  

One of the Acuras came into the pits smoking heavily while doing laps under yellow. I also noticed that there were a lot of driver changes under yellow, some of them after only a few minutes in the car.

A friend called me from his home, where he was watching it on TV. He isn't a professional mechanic or race engineer, but he helped me with my first engine rebuild, and manages the auto hobby shop at an Air Force Base. He's pretty skilled, and a smart guy.

Here's his observations, I thought they were worth sharing:

He said that the Acura lost oil pressure, and they were telling the other drivers to keep the engines above 3500. He said that the engines are test run at full throttle for 30 hours, but he suggested that maybe they need to test them at part throttle for 10 hours. Certainly, air flow and cooling are factors at slow speeds, but I hadn't thought about oil pressure.

As to the driver changes, they were reporting feeling sick. He said one of them blamed the lights and problems with vision (which was terrible), but he speculated that the slow speeds and airflow issues may have been letting CO build up in the cockpit.

For this year's Rolex, part of the endurance racing test certainly included the ability to run at low speeds under yellow for long periods of time. Hard to plan for everything, but I'm sure there will be a lot of consideration of the data from this weekend, and these cars generate a lot of data.

I guess I picked quite the year to finally go to the Rolex.

Yeah, wow a test of endurance. Thanks, everyone, who joined us. 

Do it again next year?

David S. Wallens said:

Yeah, wow a test of endurance. Thanks, everyone, who joined us. 

Do it again next year?

If there are more GRM Experience Ticket Packages made available, this year was irritating as it seemed like they were available to purchase, but were then provided to previous buyers first, who bought them all up.

And current conditions from the greater Daytona Beach area: 

Stefan said:

David S. Wallens said:

Yeah, wow a test of endurance. Thanks, everyone, who joined us. 

Do it again next year?

If there are more GRM Experience Ticket Packages made available, this year was irritating as it seemed like they were available to purchase, but were then provided to previous buyers first, who bought them all up.

I was successful in getting a ticket, despite it being my first year. I will concede that it was like calling into a radio station contest. I started calling the minute they went on sale, and kept hitting redial for the next ten minutes.

Thanks for a great time! 

Swag...

Nice score. Glad you were able to join us. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Thanks David. Great job on the midnight walk..."will this be on the test?"

Maybe. 

And how late did everyone stay up? After our midnight tour, I headed over to the media center. Around 4:00 or so Steven Cole Smith and I left to take a walk through the garages. On the way out, I grabbed the last slice of pizza--someone dropped off dozens of pies as a midnight snack. It totally hit the spot. Steven winced at me for eating a four-hour-cold piece of pizza. 

While in the garages we saw the Mazda come in on a hook. We watched them work on it for a while. If I remember correctly, first drops fell around 4:30. Or maybe it was 5:00. 

As the rain picked up, we headed back to the media center--didn't want the camera getting too wet. During a break in the rain I trekked back to our compound so I could grab my car and drive home. I pulled into my garage at 5:45. We're maybe 15 minutes from the track. 

Took a shower and went to bed. And then it was back to the track for more.

I slept for about 14 hours last night. 

I've not been to the Rolex, but when I do, I hope to go with the GRM Experience. I watched most of the race on TV and/or on the NBC Sports app. I have to admit that with all that rain, I wasn't as bummed as usual that I was not there in person.

I finally went down about 4. 

Bummed about the Mazdas

I only stayed up until about 0230 - I decided to walk back to the camper instead of taking the tram back with y'all.  The midnight q&a in the driver's meeting room was especially cool - I didn't recognize the last name until he was talking about his dad starting a kart track but Tom O'Gorman is actually from my hometown and all of my karting happens at Full Throttle!  Getting a chance to sit at the feet of Lee from Koni and achieve damper enlightenment was also amazing.  If you published times for a series of seminars with other folks like that in the grm tent I bet it would be huge. Like a live GRM Live!

The tip about watching the fireworks from the grandstands was a solid one too. I've meant to do that the last few years but always lost track of time.  This year, though:

Thanks again for putting on another awesome show-inside-a-show!