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Daytona 24 Hours 2002 |
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I always enjoy the first race of the year as it gives me the chance to escape from the depths of British winter and experience the warmer airs of Florida. I had agreed to run with my Lister driving partner in his Eurotech prepared Porsche 911 GT3R, with two other Daytona rookies Mark Sumpter and Grahame Langford (both experienced and respected Porsche peddlers). I arrived on the Wednesday night to be unceremoniously detained on the pavement outside my hotel, as President Bush was also a resident of the Adamsmark Hotel on Daytona Beach. This proved problematic as they shut the lifts down the following morning as the President left and prevented a timely arrival for the requisite ‘credentials’ check outside the ‘Speedway’.
Having
not participated in the test in January, much of the early running was
to obtain a good balance for the car.
It was also important for my driving partner to experience the
delights of the banking…(it’s always good to see the grins their
faces the first time they do this!) The
car was slightly ‘tail-happy’ in the early runs but we found a
balance that we would all be comfortable with for the race itself. We didn’t qualify particularly well but this was more down
to a misunderstanding than anything else and twenty four hours is a long
time…..
Unlike last year the weather was excellent during the run up to the race itself and indeed the forecast was for dry weather throughout the 24 hour period. Mike would start with me filling the number two slot and all was well for the first couple of hours. Unfortunately
after I had handed over to Mark we had the first driveshaft failure.
This sidelined us for ˝ hour before hewas on this way again.
Inevitably we had fallen some way behind – you cannot afford to
have any problems if you are running in the GT class.
We still battled on but shortly into my next stint I also
experienced drive failure and was towed back to the pits for the next
repair.
Unbelievably
we had another failure of this component plus a broken radiator and a
ruptured clutch pipe. These
problems meant that we could only really hope for a finish which is
still no mean feat for a team’s first venture to this ‘enduro’. We did indeed finish and although way down the order it was testament to how hard the crew worked. I know the drivers enjoyed it and I somehow know Eurotech will be back!
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