All of the Grand-Am sessions have been squeezed into a single day. There is a relatively long morning practice session, followed by a short lunch break, then a quick practice run, and finally qualifying. The Grand-Am cars then have to vacate the prime pits to make room for practice on the oval. They return in the evening for the 250-mile under-the-lights Rolex series event. This means that there will be precious little time to alleviate any hiccups that develop during the run-up to the green flag. The race is for 250 miles or two and 3 / 4-hours, whichever comes first. The weather has been quite unsettled. There have been passing showers throughout the night and the forecast is the same for the day. The 90% chance of rain will diminish a bit after nightfall. This makes it that much more of a lottery. Concentrated racing indeed. The track was wet with spots of rain as the field took to the recently repaved surface this a.m. The GTs were the first out and not surprisingly the Auberlen / Milner BMW (No. 21) led that pack. It was equally understandable that Randy Pobst was second up in the No. 36 TPC Porsche. The third place GT was a bit unusual, the lightly heralded Porsche team of Jim Tafel and Andrew Davis. DP was the expected Ganassi vs. SunTrust, Riley vs. Riley, Lexus vs. Pontiac battle at the front. The hopes of Crawford supporters were dealt a blow when Tony Stewart had a slight off, bringing about an interruption to the session.
The Riley-BMW of Finlay Motorsports (Michael McDowell / Memo Gidley) also has a spot of trouble with a smoking motor during the session. This left Jan Lammers as the best of the non-Riley class. There have been a few overnight changes to the entry list. Dominic Cicero and James Gue are aboard the Essex Racing Crawford (No. 5), managed by James’ dad, Mike. Journeyman driver Tony Ave has joined Kyle Petty and Brian Tuttle in the brand new Peter Baron-run Riley.
They are one of only two cars listing three drivers, a bit of a trick given the short length of the race (the No. 57 Corvette is the other one). The No. 04 Sigalsport Porsche has been pulled, leaving the team drivers, Gene Sigal and Matthew Alhadeff, to pedal the team’s No. 05. Scooter Gable has replaced Hugh Plumb in the Alegra Motorsports Porsche (No. 30) and Peter Baron’s other entry, the No. 61 GT class Porsche has brothers Ryan and John Dalziel aboard. The No. 94 Autometrics Porsche has John Brown replacing Bransen Patch. Finally, the No. 87 Synergy Racing Porsche, the team’s ostensible third entry, has withdrawn. Team stalwarts Danny and Steve Marshall took a look out the window and decided to head back to sunny Virginia instead. Brother Danny, a state legislator, decided to do some work for the taxpayers rather than chance being rained upon. The two Pontiac GTOs are off to a dicey start. Their times are merely “ok” and one of them is reported to have had the gear ratios mis-installed. Note that the street stock engines of these Pratt & Miller cars had to be detuned in order to qualify to race in the GT class…. hmmm. Most teams appear to be happy with the pace of the day’s activities. It’s a case of let’s get the job done and move on. No waiting about while the support events take to the track. The total track time is actually not much less than at a typical weekend event - it just seems so very concise. One of the problems is surfacing now (we’re minutes from qualifying). The last practice just ended (Angelelli and Pobst fastest in their respective classes) and the teams are scrambling to get the cars on qualifying (i.e., starting) tires before the marshalling call. Russell’s Random Ramblings Wrought from Runners Racing Round: Guy Smith: “The new infield surface is nice. It’s not as greasy as I thought it would be. I think that as the rubber goes down so will the times. Our car has a lot of understeer right now. We had a little understeer at the Glen but it is much worse now.” Jim Matthews is back with his team for this race, after missing the Glen to attend the Le Mans event. The Spirit of Daytona Crawford is sporting a new ‘stars & stripes’ livery to honor the nation’s birthday, but Frenchman Stephane Gregoire was not happy with the car’s performance thus far this morning. Troy Flis’ crew had the #09 Crawford torn apart on pit road to make suspension changes. Gregoire: “The new suspension set up was not right. The car was very nervous under braking. Just the slightest input from the steering and the car would overreact.”
The break between the sessions gave the Boss Motorsports crew time to change gears in the #4 car of Leitzinger and EFR. Both drivers were pretty happy with the car and the new pavement.
EFR: “The exit leaving the infield going on to the banking is much better now. You can actually put your foot in it.” Leitzinger: “I think the racing will be really good now through the infield; there’s multiple lines now. It’s visually different too. Some of the old lines are gone and the changes in color of the old pavement you could use as landmarks, but now it just all black.” Qualifying Quick weather update: radar shows a substantial pod of showers approaching from the west. It should miss the DPs but will likely play havoc with oval types. The DP session started with Jörg Bergmeister putting in a quick one. This put the No. 66 Krohn Racing / TRG Riley on the provisional pole. He was helped by his teammate, Tracy Krohn, who promptly put the sister Riley into the mud near Turn 1, bringing the session to a stop. The session went back to green after only a short break, but now there was a good smattering of gook deposited on the circuit at that key location. Several cars ran afoul of the black flag procedures and did not promptly call at their pits. As a result their times (some didn’t even complete a flying lap) will be canceled and they’ll be relegated to the back. The No. 5 Essex Crawford (Cicero) and, significantly, the No. 54 Doran (Borcheller) have been penalized.
There was enough green time left for the SunTrust Riley to put in two quick laps in succession and Wayne Taylor grabbed the pole for good. Cort Wagner follows suit with Ganassi entry No. 02 to make it a more “normal” looking Grand-Am front row. The No. 66 car has been relegated to third. The Spirit of Daytona Crawford of Bob Ward does a half spin at the end of the session and becomes stranded. This occurs just as a good, steady rain descends on the east banking. Steady becomes a deluge within minutes. The poor Grand-Am guys have the outer paddock - uncovered with makeshift awnings. Now begins the “real” race. Getting some rather muddied up cars ready for the evening fray. Qualifying
Notes Peter Baron on his team’s second place qualifying effort: “Ryan did a nice job, but we are still struggling with it. We could have been better. I think we are still quite a ways off. We needed to change the gearbox, but there was no time in today’s schedule. Second gear is too short and third gear is too long, but there is no changing it now. Ryan said it’s very comfortable to drive so it should be a good race car.” The DP session was interrupted with a black flag after just a few minutes of green flag running. The culprit was a frustrated Tracy Krohn: “I was just to hot going into turn one, spun and ended up stuck in the wet grass and mud.” Wayne Taylor: “I’m just ecstatic! This championship is so hard and my teammate is so much faster than everybody, it’s so hard for me to keep up to his pace. This will do a lot for my confidence. You know we changed the strategy only yesterday because we were going to have Max start and qualify. But we changed and I was pretty stressed by it. What a great team!” SunTrust Racing’s Barbara Burns added the surprising information that this is Wayne Taylor’s first pole position since May 1996. It was an IMSA-sanctioned event at Texas World Speedway, while driving an Oldsmobile-powered Riley & Scott MKIII when Taylor was last on pole. That team, which was also run by Bill Riley, went on to win that race and Taylor the driver’s championship. Team Boss Bill Riley commented, “I feeling pretty good right now. Both our drivers have done a great job helping us set-up the car. We had a clutch problem during qualifying and it will have to be replaced, so that is a bit worrisome. Otherwise the car has been perfect.” During the last practice session the #20 Crawford with Andy Wallace was second quickest. Max Crawford: “The car is working with the tires much better now. We just had to go back and do a little homework.” Andy Wallace added, “The car is really good. Tony (Stewart) is doing a great job. It’s so nice; he just shows up, you plug him in and off he goes right on the pace.” Stewart qualified the #20 and was quick enough for
seventh on the grid.
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Welcome
to Instant Racing. Just add water. Which is exactly what is being
added to the festivities today. This is undoubtedly the most concentrated
race meeting for a “major” sports car series to date.
The Brumos Porsche 250 is the second of two events at Daytona on
the 2005 Grand-Am calendar. It kicks off this 4th of July weekend,
culminating with a big-time NASCAR extravaganza. This means that
the facility is gearing up for a big crowd that will begin arriving
tomorrow. Meanwhile, the “sporty cars” are a bit of
an afterthought - or forethought to be precise.
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