24 Hours of Daytona

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Retired | Wausau, WI
Well gentlemen, my plane ride leaves for Daytona at 2:00 PM this afternoon. My son is already there with the motor home set up trackside and ready to go, and I can't wait. Will be back home late Sunday night and if I'm not to tired, I will report.

Lord, I love live road racing at 3:00 AM in the morning.

Have a great weekend guys.
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Cool. Will you be able to get any oil info from these guys like last time? I bet you'll see a lot of Mobil 1.
 
My son will be taking pictures as I don't have a digital camera. I plan on making one trip down through the pit area, and yes, I will visit with as many owners and engineers as I can.

Not going to spend to much time walking around this year as I've had some health issues within the past months and long walks and standing is very hard to do. If it wasn't for the fact he rented the motor home, I would not be going this year. The motor home is parked right next to the fence on the first section of the road course so I will see plenty of action just setting on top of it with my legs propped up. In case of bad weather, will be inside watching it on closed circuit TV. The kitchen is stocked with breakfast and lunch goodies, plus will be having grilled T-Bone steaks on Saturday night.

What a life.
 
Map attached.

Look at this map. See where it says not to scale? Right about where the "e" is, is where the motor home is parked, right next to the fence, facing the road course part. You have a great view of them coming off the front straight through the first section of the road course, out of that section and back on the oval. As long as I'm on top of the motor home I can darn near see the whole thing.

http://www.havebus.com/graphics/seating_map_daytona.gif
 
Wayne, I've wanted to go to this race ever since I was a very young man and something alway got in the way, mainly cost. I am very fortunate that my son has a great job and has offered to take me the past two year. Our time together by ourselves for the weekend is priceless.

As long as I have my health and as long as he can afford it, we will try to make this annual trip. If not, I always look forward to seeing his family on my yearly trips to Texas and spend sometime with my grandkids. Win, win, either way.
 
Great way to enjoy your life. I hope y'all have a wonderful time. I like road racing as well & go to Barber every year for the Porsche 250 & this year Indycar in April.
 
7:41 AM in Daytona, about 60 degrees and very rainy looking. Still going to be a great day. Did not realize son was bringing laptop. Need more coffee and will report back if anything exciting happens before the race starts. Son is out trying to either rent or borrow a golf cart so I won't have to walk all the way down to the garage area.

Later
 
Great son which is a reflection of his dad.

A rainy day at the races (some would say this is bad but I disagree) is better than the best day at the office!
 
10:04 AM, son is back with a golf cart. Don't know where he got it and don't care. Off to the garage area and will report back later on what I see.

And you are right benjamming, a rainy day at the races (road races) is just about as good as it gets.
 
12:05 PM EST

Golf cart is the only way to travel around this place. Starting to rain a little so we hurried back to the motor home.

Okay, here is the starting grid for the DP cars in the 24 Hours of Daytona. I talked to as many engineers as I could and listed what oil they are using in todays race. The Chevy teams just said Mobil 1 but did not state what kind. BMW teams would not give out any info and everything was covered up in the shop area around their cars. I guess they just did not realize who I was. HA!

As for as the GT class cars, to many to list all so will give a general run down to what I saw. Most of the GT Porsches were using Mobil 1 0W-40 but I saw two of them that I know were using some kind of Red Line product. Camaros and Pontiacs were using Mobil 1 of some kind, Mazda was all over the place with Castrol being used by some, VW's were either Castrol and a few were using Motul.

That's all for know. Getting ready to eat lunch and settle down for the festivities.

Later

STARTING GRID DAYTONA

1 10 DP Ford Dallara SunTrust Racing - Mobil 1 5W-30

2 60 DP Ford Riley Michael Shank - Mobil 1 5W-30

3 6 DP Ford Riley Michael Shank Racing – Mobil 1 5W-30

4 02 DP BMW Riley Chip Ganassi -?

5 01 DP BMW Riley TELMEX Chip Ganassi -?

6 55 DP BMW Riley Crown Royal/NPN Racing - ?

7 59 DP Porsche Riley Brumos Racing – Kendall GT1

8 9 DP Porsche Riley Action Express Racing – Mobil 1 0W-40

9 75 DP Ford Lola Krohn Racing - Mobil 1 5W-30

10 90 DP Porsche Coyote Spirit of Daytona Racing – Mobil 1 0W-40

11 77 DP Ford Dallara Doran - Mobil 1 5W-30

12 7 DP BMW Riley Starworks Motorsport -?

13 2 DP Chevrolet Crawford Beyer Racing – Mobil 1

14 95 DP BMW Riley Crown Royal/NPN Racing -?

15 99 DP Chevrolet Riley GAINSCO/ Bob Stallings - Mobil 1
 
12:17 PM CST

Wanted to add for all that know who he is, this will be Hurley Haywoods last 24 Hour of Daytona. I really hope he wins, but I doubt he will. Talk is that the #01 Ganassi TELMEX team is the favorite. I think they thought the same thing last year. We will know tomorrow afternoon.
 
"BMW teams would not give out any info and everything was covered up in the shop area around their cars. I guess they just did not realize who I was. HA!"

Or maybe they DO know.
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Bonus points if you can get pictures of a team with one oil manufacturer on the side of their car but with bottles of a competitor in their transporters.
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7:25 PM EST

Dinner time, quick post while my son is cooking the steaks on the grill.

Darn rain, don't think I've ever been so wet at one time. Thank goodness it has stopped . This is going to be a wild one as it seems like everyone is driving like there is only an hour left in the race. A little less than 19 to go now.

Anyway, Turner Motor Sports which has a BMW in the GT class uses Motul lubricants, 300V in the engine but I do knot know what viscosity it is. I did see something that I thought was interesting though. One of the crew members from the Turner team took their cart to the garage and came back with about 6-cases of oil and 1-case of the Motul gear oil, and dropped it off at the back Brumo's Porsche pit area. Now Brumo's Porsche has Kendall GT-1 plastered all over their car. Very interesting.

There are a lot of the RX-8 Mazda's in the GT class and it appears about half of them are using the IDEMITSU Racing Oils.

Other than that, great racing with rain tires coming to peaces when things started to dry out and a lot of cars going off course driving through the wet grass and mud.

Will try to check back in before I go to bed, whatever time that might be.

Having a blast.
 
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