Beautiful weather this weekend for the Rolex. An extra bonus was Billy Johnson winning the Continental race on Friday for Roush but his luck ran out last night in the 24. Local NSX owner David Moore has been a corner worker this weekend (Turn 4).
Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona - Photos
- Thread starter RSO 34
- Start date
Nice shots!
Is that 5th picture a parade lap for previous winners? (Missed the beginning helping a friend with a Lotus....)
The DP cars look SOOOO much better this year with the changes they've allowed to accommodate the "corvettes". I'm sorry, but the DPs have been the ugliest racecars for the past however many years (since they went to that formula), so it's good to see a little nod to aesthetics sneak back in even if it should be function over form.
Is that 5th picture a parade lap for previous winners? (Missed the beginning helping a friend with a Lotus....)
The DP cars look SOOOO much better this year with the changes they've allowed to accommodate the "corvettes". I'm sorry, but the DPs have been the ugliest racecars for the past however many years (since they went to that formula), so it's good to see a little nod to aesthetics sneak back in even if it should be function over form.
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Unbelievably jealous, the weather is perfect this weekend. Excellent photos, look forward to more.
Sweet! Just saw where Billy got called in to sub in a DP car.
So, Billy is subbing in the #60 Roush Ford?
Gotta love it!
Brian
Gotta love it!
Brian
Great shots Bob.
Damn, I didn't know Billy J. drove the 24 hour!
My friend and I got to the track Saturday around 11am.
When did they run the previous winners in the parade laps? Was that Friday? Even still, it was very cool seeing the cars in the tent.
Billy, if you are reading this, can you please provide some insight?
I am most intrigued by Daytona's turn 1. I was trying to figure out how the drivers brake for it. It seems that braking is done in stages: There's some heavy braking, even while turning a bit, while still on the main NASCAR portion of the track. It appears that the drivers try to go as straight as possible while scrubbing some speed. Then as the pavement transitions to the "infield", it seems that the drivers continue to brake but maybe ease off a bit (smooth, smooth smooth). Then, as the turn tightens, just before it really tightens in the left-hander, it seems that drivers start to trail off the brakes.
I saw so many different places where the guys were back on the gas: some were trailbraking nearly all the way to the apex; some where off the brakes and on the throttle at the point there the turn-in become more severe, about 15-20 yards or even more before the apex (mostly the 911 GT Porsches: makes sense considering the rear-engine layout, but not all of them that did this were Porsches).
So, can you provide an insight on brake techinque there? Most appreciated.
It was a great weekend. Great weather. I'm really, really glad I brought lots of layers. Overnight it was pretty damned chilly (OK, 48 degrees might not sound too cold but we were out in it 6-7 hours at a time.)
The RX-8 rotaries were ear-splitting loud (as they always are). Standing against the fence where the cars go back up onto the banking is a favorite spot. The basso-profundo of the V8-cars (DP, Turner BMW, the Camaros, etc.) rumbled the gut. The wail of the Porsches hurt the eardrums, and the shriek of the RX-8's hurt the eardrums and the brain.
Lots of visual, aural, and other sensory memories, from the sights, the noise, and the pretty-cold overnight to crap, it's hot here in the sun at 2pm (layers!!!).
Got to see some familiar faces, from Wei-Shen to Robert Davis (head of motorsports Mazda North America), and talked briefly on the grid with Dutch Mandell from Autoweek.
Great weekend!! Next up is Sebring 12-Hour (but a track day for me at Homestead in between.)
My friend and I got to the track Saturday around 11am.
When did they run the previous winners in the parade laps? Was that Friday? Even still, it was very cool seeing the cars in the tent.
Billy, if you are reading this, can you please provide some insight?
I am most intrigued by Daytona's turn 1. I was trying to figure out how the drivers brake for it. It seems that braking is done in stages: There's some heavy braking, even while turning a bit, while still on the main NASCAR portion of the track. It appears that the drivers try to go as straight as possible while scrubbing some speed. Then as the pavement transitions to the "infield", it seems that the drivers continue to brake but maybe ease off a bit (smooth, smooth smooth). Then, as the turn tightens, just before it really tightens in the left-hander, it seems that drivers start to trail off the brakes.
I saw so many different places where the guys were back on the gas: some were trailbraking nearly all the way to the apex; some where off the brakes and on the throttle at the point there the turn-in become more severe, about 15-20 yards or even more before the apex (mostly the 911 GT Porsches: makes sense considering the rear-engine layout, but not all of them that did this were Porsches).
So, can you provide an insight on brake techinque there? Most appreciated.
It was a great weekend. Great weather. I'm really, really glad I brought lots of layers. Overnight it was pretty damned chilly (OK, 48 degrees might not sound too cold but we were out in it 6-7 hours at a time.)
The RX-8 rotaries were ear-splitting loud (as they always are). Standing against the fence where the cars go back up onto the banking is a favorite spot. The basso-profundo of the V8-cars (DP, Turner BMW, the Camaros, etc.) rumbled the gut. The wail of the Porsches hurt the eardrums, and the shriek of the RX-8's hurt the eardrums and the brain.
Lots of visual, aural, and other sensory memories, from the sights, the noise, and the pretty-cold overnight to crap, it's hot here in the sun at 2pm (layers!!!).
Got to see some familiar faces, from Wei-Shen to Robert Davis (head of motorsports Mazda North America), and talked briefly on the grid with Dutch Mandell from Autoweek.
Great weekend!! Next up is Sebring 12-Hour (but a track day for me at Homestead in between.)
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Really nice shots. Great location with no chain-link barriers to shoot through.
Any of the Don and Pooh in the seats?
Any of the Don and Pooh in the seats?
No, but I did get pics of our own David Moore performing his duties (cough, cough) as a corner worker.
Here he is hard at work:
And here is at the moment there was a 5 car pileup caused by the failure of a certain corner worker to throw a flag because he was too busy having a vogue moment.........
Me thinks they may "retire him" and send him out to stud after missing this flagging opportunity to smile for his fans.......
Well, I really didn't do a whole lot this weekend.
Continental Tire: #61 ROUSH Performance Ford Mustang BOSS 302R
I drove for around 11 laps total (3 of which were in a customer car which I put P1 -and our #61 in P2) in practice. Jack drove for 1.5 Hours of the 2.5 Hour race so I finished the last hour of the race. This was an exciting one which you should CATCH ON SPEED Channel at 12:00pm EST (NOON).
Rolex Series: #94 Turner Motorsport BMW M3 in GT
I drove for a grand total of 2 timed laps, and about 3 or 4 'out-ins' due to yellow flags in practice. I hopped in the car for the race at around 6pm-ish and the motor was already hurt from a mechanical. I think I drove for around half an hour plus more out-ins to try to troubleshoot the problem but we just decided to park it because the motor was too far gone.
Rolex Series: #77 Doran Racing Ford Dallara in Daytona Prototype "DP"
So after the #94 was done, I had dinner with the family and drove about 25 miles north heading back home to NC. We stayed the night and went to have breakfast at the Cracker Barrel at 11am when I got a phone call "where are you!!? We need you to hop in the #77 Ford because the other two drivers were in the hospital and couldn't finish the race."
So I left the CB in a hurry and sped quickly back to the track. Within 30 minutes of me arriving at the track, I was in an orange Circle-K/Combos driving suit, going over the car's controls and switches, and waiting for the car to pull into the pit lane. I have never driven a DP before and honestly, I didn't even know what the car looked like until it pulled into the pits.
I quickly hopped in the car, the door was shut, the air jacks dropped, and I was reaching for the non-existent shift lever (there's a picture of this) when the team was saying "GO, GO, GO!". It was my natural instinct because I never have driven a paddle-shift racecar before. I grabbed the right lever and left in a nice smokey burnout.
Within 3 laps I was turning the target laptime for us to maintain position since we were up a few laps from the next position and down a few from the next spot up. I ended up turning a 1:43.0 which was within half a second off of the car's best lap time. -Again, having never driven a DP before.
I did two full stints which was about 2 hours - which was more than all the driving I did during the whole weekend in the other 2 series combined!
To answer your question:
First off the talent level is a huge range from world-reknown drivers to doctors and lawyers. For any braking zone, the straighter you're able to make it, the more of the tire's grip is available for straight-line braking. A lot of drivers start up high on the banking at the start/finish line and dive down to straighten the braking zone on entry. Some also continue the straighter braking for a wide turn-in for Turn 1. Depending on the dynamics of the car, layout, downforce, etc... lines can vary a bit for the *ideal* braking. Also various lines are more defensive than others. The goal is to brake as late as possible and still turn a bit (which is unavoidable in T1) and just balance the car and trail off the brakes as you need more steering input to start your turn-in.
Some of the fastest drivers keep a tight line all the way in, while others do hang the corner out wide for a wider turn-in and higher mid-corner speed. Often the wider entry will have a higher mid-corner speed but you're traveling further which takes more time than staying tight. It just requires doing both and looking at the data to see what is faster.
Billy
That's a pretty impressive number. I was timing the leaders and they were running in the 1:43-1:44 range for a good part of the race, so 1:43 flat is a competitive number, even more amazing considering you said "I have never driven a DP before and honestly, I didn't even know what the car looked like until it pulled into the pits." I hope this got you even more noticed than you are already and results in some continued solid rides in front-running equipment - you obviously have the chops for it!
Thanks for understanding exactly what I was getting at and explaining it well. I know that having to turn a bit while braking for T1 (and there doesn't seem to be a way to avoid that) is kind of freaky in that the car must feel like it wants to rotate the whole braking zone, since none of the braking for that turn is completely straight. I'd love to try that turn; I have tried trailbraking but I usually either end up slowing too much by the apex, or when I try to go in hotter and really take advantage of the reason to trailbrake, I end up rotating the car more than I want and scrub speed anyway, so I do most if not all of my braking in a straight line. Until I can feel comfortable on that knife-edge trailbraking, I would be very afraid of Daytona T1. I'm going to read up on trailbraking technique again before my next track day (end of this month) and see if I can practice on at least one slow-speed corner (Homestead T8 has a fairly fast approach and slow apex speed, so that might be a good left-hander to experiment on, and I can then try T6 for a right-hander.
There's another aspect to your response on the various lines I did not think of since my frame of reference does not include it: downforce. Thanks for the reminder.
Also, I am constantly seeking the wide/more distance/higher apex speed vs. shallow/cut distance/slower apex speed answer but I need to get some better data acq. Currently only using some primitive iPhone app that does apex speed and segment times. (I'm just a track-day hobbyist, not a w2w competition participant.)
Anyways, thanks for an insightful response and congratulations on your contribution to the events this past weekend!
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Congratulations Billy on winning the Continental Tire Challenge along with driving the DP in the Rolex 24 for a 7th place finish. Can't imagine would it would be like to pop into that car for the first time just prior to heading out on the track.
We all had a great time at the track and enjoyed having someone to root on during both races.
Great pics Bob!!
We all had a great time at the track and enjoyed having someone to root on during both races.
Great pics Bob!!
The car shouldn't step out when trailbraking. You might need a bigger front swaybar to stabilize the car when trailbraking.
Bob - can you email me any high res shots you took of the DP? [email protected]
Bob, thanks for sharing the pics!
Billy, thanks for providing some insight, that is a cool story. Watching on TV I would never have known that you had not spent time in a DP before that, awesome job! You were almost on the pace of old, fat PT
Billy, thanks for providing some insight, that is a cool story. Watching on TV I would never have known that you had not spent time in a DP before that, awesome job! You were almost on the pace of old, fat PT
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