The
Old and The Restless - Geriatic Juicies take
on Daytona --by Mark Patterson
Veteran
(2 years or more at our age counts) Skip Barber
antiques, Jim Victor, Dario Cioti and Mark Patterson,
all well over 50, talked pro driver Peter Argetsinger
into racing the mighty Daytona 24 Hour Grand Am
Rolex Race (see www.grand-am.com) and in a fit
of remorse, included John Pew as the 5th driver,
despite his youthful 47 years of age.
Actually,
we were out of money.
We
ran with the Michael Braughman Racing Team. Yup,
you're right, only Michael himself has heard
of him, but he runs 4 Grand Am Cup and GrandAm
Rolex cars in total. We took the #46 bright yellow
Corvette (white on race day), which has more
output and noise than Dario after a good Italian
meal. We ran in the SGS class, and watched our
mirrors as a lot of GTs and DPs (Daytona Prototypes)
screamed by at 185-190 mph. We crawled around
at 150 on the back straight and 160+ on the front.
Hello Turn One.
Our
primary sponsors (wives and girlfriends; one
doesn't know about the other) encouraged this
venture and all attended the 3 day event and
the agonizingly tiring hours well into the
rain-clogged night. Jim Victor had neither
in attendance and slept peacefully in a folding
chair.
Practice
was scary till we let Pete set the car up for
drivers of ours kill level, but once we'd got
the car pointed forwards, times came down exponentially,
whatever that means. We were all fast, if you
exclude Argetsinger, who was just plain irresponsible.
He made it down to the2:02s and the rest of
us climbed down from the lofty 2:20s into thebelow-10s
in due course. By race day Pete was clocking
2:01s, I had some 2:06s and everyone else was
on the verge of breaking through 7s and8s.
Balanced, quick and friendly team, at least
in the beginning.
Pete
took the wheel for qualifying and was, to our
way of seeing things, very fast. At 1pm on race
day when the green flag dropped, we started 53rd
out of 54 cars. Somewhere there'd been a breakdown
in strategy. Actually, it was the car owner's
fault, who didn't explain the Q1 and Q2rules
to us properly. None of us can read either. So,
with Pete actually getting us into slot 36, as
I recall, a technical infraction had forced us
to start the race from Orlando.
At
the end of his stint in the sunshine, the
last we were to see for 9 days, he had moved
us all
the way up to 38th where we should have started.
I took the second stint and moved us to 32nd
before pit-out, but by then the rain had
begun its tedious and unrelenting presence.
For twenty
of the twenty-four hours we were blessed
with some form of rain, from mild Oregon spring
sprinkles
to Bombay summer monsoon downpours. The latter
were so extensive that the DPs would lose
if Grand Am kept the race going (sponsored
rain
tires were running out), so obviously they
did they safe and outcome-determining thing:
3 hour
red flag. Right before the red, John Pew
had fought hard to get the 2+ hour stint behind
the
pace car under double yellow, never topping
50 mph even in the straight-aways. Now there's
a
team player.
Nic
Longhi in the GT factory Maserati passing
me at 3:00am in the rain
Dario
used this rain break and the large puddles
along pit lane as an opportunity to get himself
on SPEED. He induced various team mechanics
to build small idiotic floats and let the
wind race them down the puddles, which SPEED
dutifully picked up and actually re-ran in
slow motion. That's the race we won, but
there were no trophies.
In
the midst of our night long slog, I forgot to
mention that, based ona DP running into Pete
Argetsinger twice in the opening stint, once
on TV (I misspelled his name Argetsiger on the
team caps I'd ordered and he hasn't spoken to
me since; these people are very sensitive from
upstate New York), we were running low on brake
fluid, an imperative friend as you approach the
chicane and Turn One. Approaching the former,
my foot went through the floor and the Corvette
through the chicane. This got me on SPEED. If
you don't drive a DP and drive it fast, SPEED
has no interest unless you doing something rather
ridiculous. Dario and I qualified.
I
had my thumb on the radio button about as
hard as my braking foot on the floor, screaming
at the pit crew to get ready for my pit in.
This was a narrowly averted disaster and
I needed all their focus and attention on
a very speedy turnaround. Message back: "You're
doing fine. That's how ABS brakes work in
the rain." Then I asked for rain tires,
silly I know, but the slicks and no brakes
were just wearing me down. "No, you're
doing great, just keep it up." I did
for another 20minutes like a good Viagra
advertisement, and handed over to Pew with
some cautionary counsel about the state of
these newly invented ABS rain brakes. At
least they gave him rain tires.
Pete
gets tapped by an insane dive bomb pass
Grrrrrr...
Nevertheless,
two laps later we peeled John off the rails
at Turn Six after the brakes eventually just
laughed us off. Silly how good communication
with your pit, their ignorant advice and
an over-trusting group of drivers can produce
a 90-minute in-the-garage-front-end replacement
job.
That
wasn't the last piece of high quality engineering
support provided to this first time Daytona team
(OK, Pete's tried 4 other times, but never finished
till he teamed up with a few octogenarians).
At 1 in the morning, or later, Pete brought the
sputtering, smoking, steaming Corvette into the
pits. The mechanics declared the car DOA and
our race over. I was togged up to go, had taken
all my Ritalin, gloves on, the works.
As
we depressingly gathered our stuff from pit lane,
the mechanics pushed the car back to the garages.
By the time we reached the garage all the mechanics
were asleep or goofing of fin pit lane. After
some minor words of encouragement, the team owner
was induced to encourage his mechanics to at
least find the problem before telling us the
race was over after just 12 hours. 35 minutes
later I was clipping along at165 mph, singing
in the rain.
And
so the story goes. We ploughed through another
12 hours and dragged the ailing car, wounded
and scratched, over the finish line. Well
worth it and next year the kids can go back
to college. We finished 38th overall, the
highest Pete had ever finished. A blast for
sure and something that each race driver
must do at least once in a lifetime. Call
Pete. He's good, except at qualifying.
NOW
IT'S TOO LATE TO WRITE UP SEBRING....I'll
try tomorrow!
