You personally know anyone that has driven a car in the Rolex Daytona 24 Hours? How do you know them & what did they drive, etc? I trained w/ a buddy at Gold’s Gym that drove several years: My plastic surgeon friend, race car driver, Ferrari owner raced for Alex Job in a Porsche & co-drove w/ Bill Auberlin among others.
You ever go to Daytona for the race? Are you there now?

 

I'm 45 minutes away from Daytona... but the Rolex is the same weekend as the Super Bowl.... as much as I want to get away from Jax for that week, there's too much money to be made at the bar.

 

Actually, I know a lot of Rolex 24 Hour drivers. I crew in the Grand Am Cup series, which is the undercard for the Rolex series most race weekends (not at the 24, though). A few of our regular drivers have done the 24 Hour race, like Bud Riechard (normally an ICSCC GT2 racer with a tube-frame 3rd gen RX-7), Roger Bogusz (RX-3 in SCCA) and Don Arpin (I think normally a Corvette guy, but I've only done one race with him). Roger was planning to buy a new car and run again this year and asked me to crew, but that fell through. He might still be driving someone else's car, though. Another driver I know really well (my standard for "really well" is that I have his cell phone number programmed into my cell phone; not that I hang out with the guy much or send him Chrismas cards) is Randy Pobst.

FWIW, I really don't like crewing 24 hour races. I always seem to get the shifts where everything goes smoothly, then all the stuff goes wrong on my sleep-shift and they wake me up for an "all hands on deck" emergency. That happened at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill, a year and a half ago, so I only got 1 hour of sleep.

 

What are the date's for the race?

 

February 3-6th.

 

Dont really "know" any, but met quite a few. The wife and I were pit marshalls at the 2001 race. My wife had the Corvette teams so we got to see my hero (Dale E sr.) just before he passed on along with Andy Pilgrim, Ron Fellowes, Dale jr., etc. She also had the BMW team with Bill Auberlen . I had a Ferarri team (early retireee) and the Racers Group 66, 67 and 68 Porsches with Kevin Buckler as the lead driver on the 68?. Mostly you chat with the crews, and sometimes the drivers about the pit stop (what was done etc) for your report to race control. They were all super nice people, espceially the crews. whatever food and drink they had was freely offered to us. It was absolutely miserable weatherwise, but we had the time of our lives being part of such a spectacle. I hope to do it again when I have more time. If you have the opportunity to attend, I reccomend highly that you get a pit pass, bring your nomex (not allowed in the hot pit area without it) and venture into the pits. Forget TNT, THATS my kind of drama.

Oh and I met Randy Pobst. He's a CFR SCCA member and attended/competed in one of our local autox's a couple of years back. That dude can flat out drive. A real talent. His stock can only continue to go up. And hes a super nice guy.

 

Does Grand American still use volunteers at the 24 Hour race? Every official I've seen for the last few years (at the "regular" races, at least) has been loaned out from NASCAR, since the France family owns both sanctioning bodies. If they still do, I might like to volunteer those years I'm not crewing. Having been penalized for so many minor infractions, I'm as well versed in the rules as any official.

 

I dunno about Grand Am sorry. I could ask around.

 

Oh, hold on, was Grand Am even sanctioning the 24 Hour race at Daytona back then, or was it another body, like IMSA? The Cup series is new -- 3 years ago -- to Grand Am (formerly Motorola Cup, sanctioned out of Canada) but I was under the impression Grand Am already had the Rolex Series established and had been sactioning the 24...I know they have for at least the last few years, but before that is a mystery to me.

 

I dont think they were the sanctioning body back then. And I didnt get an email asking me to work it this year. But then I havent worked since the SCCA January nationals at Sebring in 2002 so they may have dropped me from their list of eligile workers.