Administrators Bill Strong Posted April 3 Administrators Report Share Posted April 3 April 1, 2023DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY: 14-Hour,Daytona, FL"Hawk Performance Daytona 14-Hour"Event Director: dana.morrison@champcar.orgEntrant List results https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/2146340 official race control log https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YDh3f98LOsVuqP4uBZVJg2yygdLiZFt_gE_n5qbklIg/edit?usp=sharing Pictures -Daytona pics are up. Little bit of everything in there. If anyone would like a custom gallery DM or email me at zachkingphoto@gmail.com. More than happy to set one up for y’all. Everyone looked like they were haulin ass and having a blast. https://zachking.smugmug.com/2023-Champcar-Dayton-14 Fastcarphotos.com https://www.facebook.com/groups/944027485692477/user/100041817835641 Dezso Kovihttps://dezsokovi.smugmug.com/Motorsports/2023-14-Hours-of-Daytona-Champcar/ Inside ChampCar Post Race Interviews 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazmarc Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 Congratulations to Floridiot Motorsports. Not only do you have one of the best team names in ChampCar, but YOU JUST WON DAYTONA!!!!! Way to go. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Team Infiniti Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 Floridiots FTW, they have been quietly sneaking up on this for years,Congrats! 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petawawarace Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 What a trip. We put on 5000kms going to Daytona and back in a 6 day long trip. Finally got home late last night. This was a bucket list track for my Dad and I. It delivered. All 3 of our drivers were rookies here, and with a Cobalt I was thinking a top 25 would be an unbelievable result if we stayed out of trouble and had no issues. Friday was pretty smooth for us. We got unloaded and into the tech line right away. I think we were 9th in line. Thank God. There were still cars in line at almost 7pm when we left. We rebuilt our spare engine in the garage (couldn’t get piston rings until Friday morning). And sorted out our stall and a few issues with the cool suit system. Had a nice dinner and got some sleep. We got lucky with a good starting position and we rolled off 10th. I started the race and had never turned laps at Daytona before so took it pretty conservative. I got passed by a few fast cars but I was steadily picking off cars. Without timing for the first but we had no idea where we were. I figured somewhere in the 15-20 range. After my stint and once timing came up, we found ourselves in 12th I think. We nailed our first three pit stops with time to spare. We also called the stops at the exact right times. During my second stint I work my way up to 2nd place overall. As little as 30 seconds behind the leader after 7hrs. I was in utter disbelief. We held that spot for just under an hour when my stint was coming to an end. Coming out through NASCAR 3/4, the car shutdown with no warning. As I coasted in, I noticed I had no ignition lights or starter but everything else was powered up. Made it to pit lane and coasted past pit-in (my mistake) and came up a couple hundred feet short of our stall. We pushed it in and did a regular stop and I went right to the fuses. Second fuse I pulled was blown. Put a new one in and off we went. Never a problem with that again. Weird. Only lost 2/3 minutes and dropped back to 12th. Dad ran about an hour into his stint and picked up a miss and lost 15mph down the straights. We worked for about an hour making multiple stops changing coils,plugs, throttle bodies, every sensor, even injectors but it wouldn’t go away. We pulled behind the wall very disappointed. I continued working on it and eventually moved the wires on the coils and made the miss go away. Turns out a coil wire was broken inside the sheathing of a brand new GM harness. Likely something damaged during manufacturing. Stupid luck. We replaced the harness as a precaution to prevent this sort of stuff. We put the headlights on and we each got a stint under the lights. That was pretty cool. Ended up 47th overall. Oh what could have been!!! We rolled out around 12:30 and headed north. The plan was to drive straight through and catch the NASCAR race in Richmond Sunday afternoon. We made it about 2hrs and called that off. Grabbed a room, slept for 3hrs and headed off in the morning. We made the Richmond race 30 minutes after the start but pounded a bunch of beers into us and had a great time. I will likely sleep for a week straight now but it was worth it!!!! 20 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimS Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 (edited) Beautiful day for a race. Friday was an easy move in as we had already teched the car at Road Atlanta. We started almost dead last (72). I was in the car first and had a great time while I was out there. Not as many yellows and purple 35’s as I expected. Lots of fun dicing with the large field. We had only one small issue very late in the race. We very nearly ran out of fuel. Exiting the bus stop the car stalled and Mike was able to get to pit road without dying on track. Car had never come close to running low on fuel at any race we have run. But Mike got a long stint with no purple 35s and ran his best laps. I need the surge tank now that we are a bit faster. The rest of the race was uneventful. We stayed on track, didn’t hit anything, didn’t get hit by anything and just put in the laps. Finished 19th overall. Our best results all time. By far the slowest car in the top 20. Thanks to all the Champcar staff for an amazing race. Edited April 4 by TimS Added pic 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmabarone Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 Thanks for a great event CCES staff! Thanks to the competitors for giving us n00bs room and tolerating us on the track. I had the pleasure of starting the race. It was an experience. Did 30 minutes, turned it over to my dad for 30, then we got Rob in for a longer stint. Had to change a hose clamp on the lower rad hose before Rob got in too. Car ran alright except for a sputter out of RH turns until the fuel pump started getting weak. Got it replaced and then didn't have any other issues. In total, I think I drove 5 hours. I only had 2 offs (except for at the end when the Fox body was blown up and I wasn't sure what was all over the track) at the bus stop. Again, thanks to everyone tolerating us. Not sure whose arm is more tired: me from giving point bys or the flagger at T3 showing us the Blue Flag. Jake #783 PB&J Racing '83 RX7, brown w/ purple 6 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtybird222 Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 We had a great time at the race despite running into some issues. I feel like we would have been in strong contention for the B class win had we not had fuel pick-up issues. Somehow after about an hour of run time, we would start getting air in the fuel line and it was cause the car to hiccup bad. We decided to pull into the garage and throw in a different fuel pump for an attempt at a fast repair but the problem persisted. Even with the issue we were still having fun, still kept the car out on the track for the remainder of the race and finished somewhat strong considering the size of the field. Unsure what the rest of our schedule for the year will be as we are trying to put together a K24 powered Miata. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RocketHamRacing Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 (edited) Huge shout out to Floridiots for the win. Well earned and well-deserved. We'd also like to thank our neighbors with RCX Motorsports and our good buddies at Motorsport 686 (Rodger, Sam, Mike, Wes. Paul and co) for their fire bottle support since we were down our crew this race. It was also great to hang out with our garage mates KH Motorsports and their absolutely gorgeous '70 Mustang! This was our 4th trip to Daytona in a row, and this race never disappoints. Perfect weather (no lightning delays) and a strong, deep field. Last year we found ourselves on the wrong end of a late race caution that dropped us down to P11 when we didn't have the pace to hold off the car behind us on the restart, but this year we were able to hold pace on the Treasure Coast team to defend our P10 spot under Pink 35 conditions. Mean Green did what we needed - stayed out on track for the full 14, 2 hrs stints on fuel, and all-around dependable. The only exception was our window net kept coming lose from the mounting straps. Happy with the finish and looking forward to Sebring in July. Edited April 4 by RocketHamRacing 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigMoneyWasters Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 For the 229 BMW it was definitely a day full of ups and downs. An early alternator failure lost us 45 mins and then the fuel pump died. A trip to the parts store and an hour or so, we were back on track. We ran strong throughout the race until we got caught up in the last minute crash from a blown up Mustang or something. The car was hit twice and while the Floridiots took the checkers we were on the wrecker. Other than that great race, great weather and now to try to put the car back together for Sebring. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtybird222 Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 46 minutes ago, BigMoneyWasters said: For the 229 BMW it was definitely a day full of ups and downs. An early alternator failure lost us 45 mins and then the fuel pump died. A trip to the parts store and an hour or so, we were back on track. We ran strong throughout the race until we got caught up in the last minute crash from a blown up Mustang or something. The car was hit twice and while the Floridiots took the checkers we were on the wrecker. Other than that great race, great weather and now to try to put the car back together for Sebring. Ouch, that sucks to hear. Still haven't seen much of a write-up on what happened at the end of the race other than it was a "big one" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigMoneyWasters Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 25 minutes ago, dirtybird222 said: Ouch, that sucks to hear. Still haven't seen much of a write-up on what happened at the end of the race other than it was a "big one" From what our driver told me, as he approached the Bus Stop there were 2 cars spinning in front of him. He had little control because of oil on the track from a blown up Mustang and hit a spinning blue car (Porsche?) and after coming to a stop was hit by a yellow/orange BMW. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmabarone Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 (edited) I went through right before the big one. Midway down the straight, I saw a ton of smoke and brake 2 sets of brake lights. I slowed early, my headlights picked up a ton of crap on the track (cone, tire debris, idk) and the Fox body stopped so I decided to take the escape road. Was midway through the escape and I heard screeching tires, so I hustled through to avoid any damage. I do have video that I will post up when I get everything digested. Edited April 5 by jmabarone 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Bill Strong Posted April 5 Author Administrators Report Share Posted April 5 Video of the "Big One" at the end.https://replay.dropbox.com/share/VPudMgTwjT2n3aSa 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fetterhund Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 (edited) This year was not perfect for us, but was tremendously better than last year where I got in 12 laps and lost the engine. We were able to run most of the race this year, so it felt a bit more worth the 4400 (a 7081km) mile round trip. Having a junkyard replacement engine being bad out of the box pretty much eliminated any of my winter car development time as I had to do a full rebuild in a hurry including a new (and actually new) head. I never felt "ready" even after a test day. Just before hitting the road my coolant pressure sensor went out, and had to fix it at the track. Tuesday of last week around 11am, I hit the road and took I-10 across the country in a very uneventful drive and arrived at Daytona in the early afternoon to drop off my trailer in line. Friday we went through tech and then swapped the coolant pressure sensor. Ours is plugged directly into the head, which means pulling the intake to replace it. Got it done, then the car wasn't idling right, but it was time to close up shop. Race day I walked into the garage and saw the tube from the crankcase vent tube to the dipstick tube was not connected. Reconnected it, and the car ran perfect. The race. Had a decent start, in hind-sight I could have been a bit more aggressive and trusted the car more. There were a few cars I seemed faster than and was surprised I was faster than, and hesitated to pass. A few laps in I was starting to get more trust in the car and was picking up the pace, when going into turn one I started feeling a pretty bad vibration. I radioed that I was going to pit. Going into turn three the car was not turning and I went super wide and started slowing. I radioed that I was going to pull off. As soon as I said that, off comes the wheel and the car is dragging on the ground. Come to a stop and watch our wheel keep going straight towards where our photographer was standing, it got his attention when it hit the wall right by him. Back at the garage the wheel hub was fine, and all 5 studs were there. I watched one of the team torque the wheels that morning. I grabbed new lug nuts and they wouldn't thread on, except for enough to hold a wheel on to push into the garage. I didn't have new studs and we set off looking for a team with extras or wheel bolts. Came across the other E39 team with a transmission out of the car, they said they lost a clutch. I happened to have a spare cheapo Amazon clutch kit for emergencies and got it to them cheap. I saw them on the track later, but it looked like their day still ended early, hopefully nothing too major. In the end Mike Gorman and his team had some spare wheel bolts in their trailer that they gave us and we put my second set of wheels on the car, we also had a laugh at our really hugely rolled fender and joked we need make the rest match and run 315 tires. Took the car out to run a few laps to make sure everything was good before handing the car to another driver. The team kept me out for awhile, some communication mix-ups and when I pitted for a purple 35, the team wasn't fully ready and we ended up complicating a planned stop for one of the teams we were with. Both other drivers went their stints fairly uneventfully. I saw in the log we were noted for a PUY, I was out getting fuel and learned about it from the log. So I am going to paying a close eye on our video to find it and make it a good learning moment for driver debrief, and possibly driver briefing for new rental drivers. We also had our OEM undertrays fail, I suspect from damage from losing the wheel. So we had to pull those off as the panels were dragging. My next stint went smoothly, the new engine was running perfect despite the check engine light coming on (o2 sensor fault). We settled into a grove and were making up spots. We weren't in contention after our starting issue, but were doing out best and having fun. Shortly before my final stint was to start the car came with a problem. We noticed a ton of play in the new axle, so assumed it was that (it wasn't) and parked it until the last 20 minutes of the race and went out to the track to turn a few laps and take the checkers. It was all good until we hit turn four and the car was nearly uncontrollable at full speed. Did a couple other laps at lower speed seeing if it would help, and it never got better. I thought it felt like a suspension issue. I decided that as much as I wanted to take the checkers I didn't want to be a hazard or wreck the car, so exited turn six with a plan to pit and call it a night. Then at the bus stop there was a wreck with multiple cars and the purple 35 came out. I knew they would not clear that up in time and could safely drive at 35, so I stayed out and limped the car home. The issue ended up being the right rear shock mount totally failed. Reviewing the video I found the moment it happened, and it was a wheel going off in turn two and hitting the rut. Left the hotel at 11am Sunday morning. Decided to drive the more scenic I40 home (only adds like an hour or so to the drive home). Traffic in Atlanta was a nightmare due to a wreck. Hit a massive severe thunderstorm at Little Rock, from which I later learned had a tornado. Then going from Gallup New Mexico into Arizona, hit a snow storm. Got home around 9am Tuesday, then spent the day unloading. Today will be mostly cleaning up, watching video (except for my Garmin Catalyst that failed to record audio and video skipped a lot, I think the SD card is failing), and inspecting the car for anything else that needs to be fixed before Hallett next month. Thanks to ChampCar Endurance Series for a great event, and all of the people and teams we enjoyed chatting with. Edited April 5 by Fetterhund 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RocketHamRacing Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 3 hours ago, BigMoneyWasters said: From what our driver told me, as he approached the Bus Stop there were 2 cars spinning in front of him. He had little control because of oil on the track from a blown up Mustang and hit a spinning blue car (Porsche?) and after coming to a stop was hit by a yellow/orange BMW. Our driver was right behind the Mustang when it went and made it through the chaos though the front of our car and the windshield got oiled up pretty good. We had it on our in-car but hit the youtube 12 hr limit and can't seem to find the incident. Rough way to end the day for y'all but hope to see you out there again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RocketHamRacing Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 45 minutes ago, Fetterhund said: This year was not perfect for us, but was tremendously better than last year where I got in 12 laps and lost the engine. We were able to run most of the race this year, so it felt a bit more worth the 4400 (a 7081km) mile round trip. Great catching up with you guys this year. Shame it didn't work out the way you wanted but glad you made the trip and got to have some success. Hope to catch up again next time! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donovan Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 3 hours ago, BigMoneyWasters said: From what our driver told me, as he approached the Bus Stop there were 2 cars spinning in front of him. He had little control because of oil on the track from a blown up Mustang and hit a spinning blue car (Porsche?) and after coming to a stop was hit by a yellow/orange BMW. That was us- Blue/grey E30. My son was driving- said he saw the car in front of him spin, tried to brake easy, but it was ice. Couldn't get out of the way in time. He's fine, hope your driver was ok, too? He took checkers and we finally finished a race. Its been awhile. Overall a win for us. Not sure if the chassis can be saved, but we'll be back in some form or fashion. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakks Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 32 minutes ago, Donovan said: That was us- Blue/grey E30. My son was driving- said he saw the car in front of him spin, tried to brake easy, but it was ice. Couldn't get out of the way in time. He's fine, hope your driver was ok, too? He took checkers and we finally finished a race. Its been awhile. Overall a win for us. Not sure if the chassis can be saved, but we'll be back in some form or fashion. Take it to Ray. Doesn't look like it got too far into the rocker panel. Looks a little more than ours from NCM. 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Barone Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 Richard Barone RX7 #783 I’ll echo my son to say Thanks so much CCES for putting on this event. And also to All the others that put up with us on track. I have been attending the 24 hours of Daytona since 1972 when I was a senior. The race was my first date with my wife and sons and daughters and grandkids have accompanied me to these races. 51 years! Do you have any idea what kind of a dream come true this is for me. I know you all had to be initiated into this your first time as well but 14 hours at Daytona would probably not be the place to jump in head first. Given the opportunity to do it I couldn’t refuse. My son and I have raced go karts so that helped some. My other partner had literally never raced anywhere. None of us have ever raced against others in a race car. You know, something that scoots like a rabbit and chirps tires in third and stops on a dime and gives you nine cents change. To force oneself Far into a corner hoping you don’t lock up. Literally Cold Turkey. Sometimes I wished I had a sign saying that but we survived and we’ll be back! Here’s one of the best parts. We raced a 40 year old car that hasn’t really been run in 10 years and finished a 14 hour endurance race in about 70th place with two small hiccups that we remedied and completed the last lap still racing. I feel like I owe it to Rob to say thanks for helping us newbies. Several things we missed that he brought up made things easier and he was great not only in a pinch when fixing something but in calming nerves. What a great experience! I’m 69 years old and very lucky to be in good enough health to race in the Florida heat. We’ll be back, even better prepared and we gonna bust the top 50 next time! Thanks again to everyone that makes this happen 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Bill Strong Posted April 6 Author Administrators Report Share Posted April 6 Some newshttps://www.observerlocalnews.com/news/2023/apr/06/champcar-a-day-of-competition-camaraderie-and-good-old-fashioned-racing/ 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABR-Glen Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 Is there a way to get event t-shirts from Daytona? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petawawarace Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 17 minutes ago, ABR-Glen said: Is there a way to get event t-shirts from Daytona? They sold out at the event. Would be awesome if we could get some. I’d be interested too 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorillasticker.com Posted April 14 Report Share Posted April 14 Race report! Everyone had fun. Both cars ran great. It was hot. Glen didn't get a shirt. Corys mom came. Nic took some pictures. Porsche wins again. See y'all next time! 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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