Re: Show Your Support In for racing and in for a good cause. Will post a link on my blog/twitter feed.
Re: Show Your Support Looks like we just qualified 16th out of 33. This is pretty good, considering the last thing we want to do is qualify 1st. "Huh!?" you say? Well, when you're racing for 24 hours, you think about things differently. A lot of the teams that are qualifying really well have tweaked their cars for good, short term qualifying. Such setups tend to chew through cars in the long term, and the vast majority of them fall apart and don't finish. Also, there's an old saying in racing... "you can't win a race in the first corner on the first lap, but you sure can lose a race in the first corner on the first lap". Drivers are human, and even pros sometimes get caught up in the moment and do stupid things that cause them to break the car and get knocked out of the race. This is VERY common at the start of the race... everyone's all jittery, excited, nervous, anxious, etc., and the "red mist" descends and takes away all logical thought and common sense. There is a certain benefit to being able to sit back and watch the chaos happen in front of you, rather than being up there and part of it. When it's all said and done, you have a better chance of making it through the chaos, and then you have another 23 hours and 59 minutes to make up those positions you gave up in qualifying. Nothing is worse than being the driver out on the first lap that wads up the car. All those months of prep work, the drivers that didn't get to drive, etc., can really ruin your day.
Re: Show Your Support For those of you curious about what the race is like, here's a link to our effort from last year: <a class="postlink" href="http://bulletracing.ca/?q=content/we-went-we-raced-we-persevered" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://bulletracing.ca/?q=content/we-we ... persevered</a>
Re: Show Your Support Last night I posted in the other thread, not realizing y'all were answering the questions in this. At any rate, I'm really curious, and hopefully I'm not the only one with these questions: Also, how does the sleeping schedule work? I'm watching Speed channel now and they were saying it was 3 hours in the car for each driver, so is there a hotel or something on/near the track?
Re: Show Your Support Here are some of the answers from the other thread: <a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytona_24_hours" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytona_24_hours</a> Yes, Daytona Prototypes (DP's) and Grant Touring (GT's) both run at the same time, for 24 hours straight. DP's are much more performing, as they are purpose built, while GT's are "supposed" to be based on street cars. There's usually a 40mph or so closing speed difference between them. Here's a pic of our car with a DP car. Generally, minimum of 1.5 hours per stint for drivers at a time, sometimes will go 2 stints at once, especially in the cooler night. Driving a car for that long is a very intense and physical thing... people greatly underestimate the amount of work it takes. Most of our drivers are marathon runners, etc. Strategy is very complex... some drivers have better strengths than others... for instance, today it's calling for rain for the first 6 hours. Ross Bentley (author of Speed Secrets) is one of the best rain drivers out there... he calls it "Car Dancing". He's first in the car today for us. (Start in 20 mins, actually). Strategy is very complex, and you have to be able to react quite quickly and change/adapt as the race progresses and you see what the track/weather is doing, other teams are doing, yellow flags, fuel stops, tires, etc. It's a hell of a chess game... not just "go in and drive for 24 hours". Go read our last year's recap here: <a class="postlink" href="http://bulletracing.ca/?q=content/we-went-we-raced-we-persevered" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://bulletracing.ca/?q=content/we-we ... persevered</a> We spent over 150 laps in the garage fixing the car. You NEVER give up. EVER. It ain't over until the fat lady sings, and you ALWAYS have a chance to win. Some strange shit can happen and wipe out the top 10 teams in a blink of an eye. The race runs for 24 hours, from 3:30PM ET Saturday until 3:30PM ET Sunday. Whoever crosses the finish line under their own power with the most laps in the bag wins. You pretty well never have to go to the bathroom while you're driving, as you're too busy concentrating and dehydrating. The biggest problem we have is keeping drivers hydrated. We use PediaLite, water, gatorade, bananas, oranges, etc., etc to keep them hydrated. Drivers begin to fully hydrate themselves a full 24 hours before the race starts. They ALWAYS walk around drinking water/etc, and if they don't we shove one in their hand. The heat and physical demands are very taxing, especially when wearing a full nomex 4-layer driving suit, helmet, bellaclava, etc. Thankfully it doesn't usually get too hot in Daytona in January, so it's a fair bit easier. In the really hot days, some drivers have to be pulled from the car and are near exhaustion when they're done a stint. There are medical services available in the pit lane for just this reason. In the car we have drinking systems. We have a large driver-specific reservoir of water that gets put in the car when the driver gets in. There's tube integrated into his helmet, and a button on the steering wheel. When he pushed the button, water gets pumped through the tube. If we have a cocky/annoying driver that's mouthing off a bit, we'll "accidentally" switch up the radio and push-to-drink buttons on him in practice. And yes, you can get bored, especially when you're running fairly alone. If you're not dicing with someone, you can get into a rut, and believe it or not, driving becomes subconscious, and your mind starts to drift a bit, all while you're still putting in good laps, braking at 2 g's, etc., etc. We have spotters that keep an eye on what's going on around our car and are in constant communication with the drivers. The team management (crew chief, owner, manager(me), etc) also have driver communication. We try and get our drivers to stay with one or more other drivers on track to keep them occupied and reminded that "hey, you're in a fucking race here buddy". We also relay various lap times and relational information to them. Our closest rivals might be on the opposite side of the track from us (it IS a 3.6 mile track), and we'll still be dicing with them within tenths of a second. Trying to keep the driver aggressive, yet smart, is a challenge sometimes. Equipment longevity is the key to a long distance race like this. It's better to be 1 second a lap slower per lap but able to finish the race than it is to be 1 second per lap faster but only able to run for 18 hours before your transmission/car fucks up.
Re: Show Your Support Same stuff as any endurance sport... tons of fluids, bananas and stuff, pedalite, carboloading before the race, etc. All professional drivers have huge physical/mental/skills training that they undergo to be competitive. Sports psychology is huge, with all sorts of mental imaging, etc. We also employ professional driving simulators that you just can't buy as a private individual. Ross works with one such company developing these, so he gets a free $100k simulator for his house... we take ample advantage of that. It's to the point that at any time, we can have our drivers sit down in a room, close their eyes, and mentally go through an entire lap of a race, in the head, in real time. They visualize the track, all the markers on it (pavement defects, paint scrapes, anything that helps you become visually intimate with the track). We can put a stop watch on them, and when they're done, they are within 2 seconds of a REAL lap time on track. That's a 1 minute, 52 second lap, by the way. Again, the preparation for this is huge. As per my previous post, it's no walk in the park. They are physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of their stint. Then they go and try and take a break / nap for a couple of hours until they have to come back and do it again. Most times things are too exciting to get any sleep, so they are usually up for the entire 24 hours. Again, "endurance" just isn't a word... it's FUCKING HARD WORK. As crew, our day is about 48 hours long. The RACE is 24 hours, but we have pre-race prep, the race, and post-race cleanup. Yep. It's draining, for everyone involved. A lot of people can't hack it, and a very select few of our drivers and crew are asked/invited back for the next year. The crew we have now are very, very tight, and we're almost a family, thanks to the adversity we've gone through, under stress, etc. One of my main roles on the team, actually, is keeping them sane and functioning as a unified group. I don't get riled up that much in high-stress situations, and am always keeping things light and funny, but still on target with logical and critical thinking. (Thanks in no small part to my past training as an officer/pilot in the Air Force, I'm sure). Unfortunately, I can't make it down there this year due to crazy work commitments, but I'm still dealing with the drama/issues via text/email/phone calls. I feel like the team shrink sometimes. The other cool part is that the team's coach (Ross) has somewhat adopted me as HIS coach.
Re: Show Your Support FYI, as of right now, we've just raised over $120k for Children's Hospital. Fuck yeah!
Re: Show Your Support 22 laps into a wet race, and we've now moved up from 18th in class, to 7th in class, 21st over all. Being from Vancouver, BC, I guess you could say we have a bit of an advantage racing in the rain. Fuck Yeah!
Re: Show Your Support We're now 8th in class, bitches! All those fuckers that they've been interviewing on SPEED? We're ahead of them.
Re: Show Your Support Do they regroup the cars into the classes on every yellow flag? It seems like they do but since the DP cars are running faster than the GT cars I can't tell. I've been watching of and on since it started and still haven't seen your car.
Re: Show Your Support During a yellow flag, the DP cars are grouped together behind 1 pace car, and the GT's are grouped behind that (with a sizable gap) behind another pace car. This way, when the green flag flies, the entire group is going the same relative pace, and it's way safer and easier to deal with. Also, when a yellow flag flies, the first lap after that, the pit lane is closed. The 2nd time by, the pits are opened only to DP cars (except for a few special cases, like when a GT car runs out of gas, or is busted up, etc). The 3rd time by, the pits are opened to the GT cars. This helps with the chaos on pit lane, as the pits are set up such that DP and GT teams are alternated down the lane. So you have a GT pit, then a DP pit, then a GT pit, then DP, etc. This provides more space for a car to pull in and pull out, as on any busy pit stop (like a yellow), each pit on either side of you is usually empty (unless there's a busted car there). Otherwise, you have to roll your car back, and run the risk of hitting the car or crew member ahead of you.
Re: Show Your Support And yeah, SPEED pisses off a LOT of GT teams because they hardly ever show any coverage for the teams. We (GT's) pay the same entry fees, rates, etc., as the DP teams, and our cars are within $200k of the cost of a DP car, but 95% of the coverage (or more) is of the DP teams. Next year, I fully expect a ton of GT teams to say "fuck you" and bail out of the series. ALMS gets this, and have opened up a new class that is perfect for Grand Am GT cars. We've been shown on the coverage so far, but only as other (DP) cars go by us. Some of the more famous drivers, like Patrick Dempsey, get coverage, but that's politics. For instance, last year we were gridded next to Patrick, and here's a pic I took of the chaos. We had to keep people from CLIMBING ON OUR FUCKING CAR to get a picture of him. I was at the back of our car, and just stuck my camera up in the air and took a picture.
Re: Show Your Support I have been watching for the last 20 minutes and the only car I have seen is being driven by Jimmie Johnson. They have just been following him around the track.
Re: Show Your Support Well, Grand Am is now owned by NASCAR, which is a death knell for our class/series, I think. The rules have been hugely modified to give Mazda an advantage (they qualified 1,2,3), and the other tube-frame, custom built race cars. This is in no small part to the BS politics from NASCAR. FYI, there are 2 classes in GT; prep 1 and prep 2. Prep 1 is like us, Porsche, or Ferrari, where we use the tub and stuff from a street car. You can walk into a Porsche dealership and look at a new 997 911, and that is the same tub that we run. We have some slightly better suspension, slightly lighter/wider body, etc., but it's still VERY heavily based on the street car. Prep 2 are custom tube-frame cars. For instance, if you were to go look closely at the Grand Am Mazdas, it has nothing similar to the street car. It's all custom tube-frame construction, and is a 100% purpose built race car. Very similar to the "stock cars" in NASCAR. Anyway, all of the officials and techs are from NASCAR, a lot of the safety/tech rules have been adopted from NASCAR, and the sales/marketing team are now from NASCAR. While most of us (GT team members) enjoy NASCAR from a technical perspective (the cars, the engineering, the setup/prep competition with the other teams, etc), most of us don't follow it regularly, because the actual driving is quite boring. We tend to get together for beers/food for their road races (where all the road racers, like us, come out and drive for them), but generally hate the general lameness of NASCAR and the "go left, go left, now put your foot ALL the way down" driving style.
Re: Show Your Support I will say this, one of the advantages we have right now is the weather. The physics of a rear-engined car helps with wet-weather handling, specifically braking, etc. That's what is keeping us relatively competitive with the Mazdas so far in this race. If/when it ever dries out completely, I expect the Mazdas to start pulling away.
Re: Show Your Support Gotta love how everything the "National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing" does in any series it touches is designed to kill off actual stock-car racing. EDIT: Finally saw you guys on TV as Juan Pablo Montoya was going by. Looks like one of the other GT cars behind you was smoking heavily. And they're reporting one of the specialty cars may have problems. Are you guys hoping the specialty cars push it too hard? Or are you doing a rain dance instead?
Re: Show Your Support When racing a 24 hour race, you think LONG term, and are in preservation mode for the vast majority of the race. The first 20 hours or so are run at about 80%, with discretion being the better part of valour. Look at all the cars breaking right now... and we're not even 1/4 of the way into the race. We've just been smacked in the ass end of the car, which caused some damage, and a loss of position, but we seem to be all right, and are still good to go. The car that is smoking a ton is having electrical issues... something is causing it to misfire and dump raw fuel and maybe some oil out the exhaust. They've already replaced all of the coil packs but to no avail. One of the spotter's jobs is to keep track of who's driving like a moron, and inform the driver about it, and let them go by and keep them away from us. There is nothing worse than having the stupidity of another team/driver ruin your race. A friend of mine was driving the #82 Team Seattle Porsche 3 years ago when Tony Stewart totally fucked up his car. As in, hit it so hard, they had to red-flag the race for almost an hour (only the 3rd time in the history of the race that it was red-flagged), and his car was craned onto the back of a flatbed and hauled off to the scrap yard. He was driving a smart race, and it was brought to an unfortunate and expensive end due to an idiot. And that's another thing... you are 100% financially responsible for your own car, and ONLY your own car, when on track. Grand Am might fine you, but if you wipe out another car, tough shit for them... it's their dime. Some stand-up guys will say "mea culpa" and write a cheque of some sort, but that is not at all expected. ANd a lot of guys don't encourage it, either. You HAVE to be of the mindset that you can 100% write-off your car when it goes on the track, or you'll eat a gun.
Re: Show Your Support We're now 10th in class, and are chasing down Leh Keen in 9th, who's this year's Grand Am GT Champion. FUCKING EH!