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HSR Daytona Classic 24 - (Nov. 14-16, 2019)...

A Rainy Weekend at the Sprint Races...

This HSR weekend included two events, the Classic Daytona 24 and the Daytona Historics sprint races. We opted out of running the 24 hour event, as we’ve already had the experience of a grueling all night endurance race at the 2001 Rolex 24 at Daytona. We thought the sprint races would be easier on our crew and give us more time to visit with old friends and fellow competitors. Too bad it didn’t really work out that way.

Wednesday - Load in

Dave, Sue and Michael Hooten arrived in Daytona around lunchtime. We processed through registration and headed for the paddock, which was packed solid with race haulers. We found an open spot and started to set up the 24’x16’ tarp. As we tried to lift it up to get the legs inserted, a blast of wind ripped the tarp from our hands. Dave managed to hang onto it as it flipped over and twisted some of the poles into pretzels. Several hours later, we had a revised and resized tarp in place. Once the car was inspected, we called it a day and headed to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner.

Thursday - Qualifying

Our son, Mark, joined us early in the morning for our first Qualifying session. It was 8:00am, sunny and 70°. Fifty-two cars were on grid; three Groups (2, 3 & 5) with 23 different classes of cars, LOTS of Porsches and anything else from a 1962 Lotus 23b 2000cc, a 2006 Mini Cooper S to a very fast big block Corvette. We were gridded in the 17th position.

Dave was shown a Black Flag on lap 5 for contact, came into the pit box and was spoken to. (Note: It was not Dave. It was another black #6 Vette.) After the car was looked over, he was waved back out, but since we lost time on track, Dave came into pits after the next lap. His best time in six laps was 2.08.703. He never got a clean lap.

The crew went about prepping the car for the second Qualifying session. We were back on track at 3:15pm with overcast skies and 80°. Again, fifty-three cars were on track. There was a crash on the 4th lap, which caused a Yellow and then Black Flag All. We lost precious qualifying time sitting on pit road waiting for the track clean-up. Once we got back on track, there was only time for a couple more laps and we could not improve our best time. Rain started to move in as we prepared the car for the next day. We put the car in the trailer, secured the tarp and headed back to the hotel for dinner in our room. The rain fell all night and we wondered how our tarp was holding up.

Friday - Qualifying and Race One

The skies were overcast, but clearing when we woke up. Michael went to the track to check out the situation. The tarp had water on it, but otherwise was fine. We skipped our early morning third Qualifying session due to the wet track. Only 7 cars went on track.

We watched the track conditions as our Group 5 Race 1 approached. We did not want to risk the car in wet conditions knowing the amount of crashes that were in our previous sessions. At the last minute, we decided the track was looking pretty good and quickly got Dave into the car and up to the Grid. We were gridded in 18th position overall.

At 1:30pm with overcast skies,70°, fifty-three cars took the track for the race. The whole race was a crashfest; lap one, crash in Turn One – Full Course Yellow (FCY), lap two, crash – FCY, lap four, Green, and the rest of the race was under FCY. After 7 laps, we finished 18th overall and 1st in class. We were very happy that our car survived in good shape, but what a disappointing "race"!

Saturday - Race Two

Race 2 at 9:45am, an overcast 60° was pretty much the same scenario. Forty-eight cars survived Friday’s race and were on Grid. We were gridded in 15th position overall. The FCY came out on lap two this time. There were a couple of green laps in the 6 lap race. We finished 9th overall and 1st in class. Our best time on lap 6 was 2.08.724.

Once again, we were glad that Dave brought the car back in great shape. The Classic 24 was scheduled to start after lunch and run throughout the night. The team was more than ready to pack up and head home, so we did. Overall, it was a disappointing weekend between the weather and the ridiculous mix of cars in our run group.

Note to self: it is very windy with no top or windshield on the banking at 180.25 mph!