The Cup car that I drove at Daytona was the #37 TPC Racing Porsche. Fortunately, I will be contesting the entire fourteen race series with TPC Racing. My co-driver for the season will be Manuel Matos. I have driven with Manuel on a number of occasions, including the 2002 and 2003 24 Hours of Daytona. I expect we will make a very competitive duo.

Our other co-drivers for the Daytona round were Emil Assentato and Nick Longhi. The Porsche was a fairly new experience for them, but they both have very successful track records in all types of racing, so we welcomed them as teammates.

PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING

TPC Racing ran the Cup cars in the SGS class last season on the Hoosier racing tires, so they had a lot of data to draw on going into the new season. Their philosophy tends toward a very stiff car, whereas I prefer a softer set up designed to maximize grip. We tried the stiff set up during the test weekend, as well as the first practice day of the race weekend. We were having a difficult time keeping the rear tires under the car for more than a few laps, so on Thursday night after the first qualifying session we gave up and threw a dramatically softer set up at the car. I drove it for a few laps in night practice and thought it felt great.

The next morning was the second qualifying session. Prior to going out we made a few more changes to the car. I qualified at a 1:57.8, which wasn't great, but was better than I had done the day prior. The car was great at putting the power down at the exits of the slower corners, but was very difficult to get pointed into the corner, even on new tires. I reasoned that it wasn't a very good car for one lap, but that it would hold up well over a long run as the rear tires went off.

We had a little setback in the final practice session when Nick crashed the car while braking for turn one. The damage wasn't significant and the crew had it back together in no time. My only concern was that it didn't affect Nick mentally because I suspected we would be relying on him heavily in the race.

Another minor setback occurred when we didn't get our paperwork submitted in time for qualifying, which resulted in us having to start in 27th position in GT. It was the second year in a row that I had to start from the back due to paperwork issues. I really hate starting the race from the back because there is more opportunity to be involved in someone else's wreck, but if we made it through the opening laps I knew it wouldn't make any difference given the length of the race.

THE RACE

The race started at noon this year, which was an hour earlier than the normal one o'clock start time from year's past. I liked this change because the hardest part of the race for me has always been the next morning and anything that makes that part shorter works fine for me.

I passed a lot of cars during the first few laps, but was very cautious because I always try hard not to become the idiot that crashes the car at the start of a twenty-four hour race. There were a few guys near the back who didn't seem to share my concern, but for the most part, everyone was pretty sensible.

The car felt very similar to the way a Porsche normally feels during the first stint at Daytona when the weather is reasonably warm and the sun is out. It started off neutral and went to oversteer as the rear tires began to wear. The latter didn't occur until fairly late in the stint, so the lap times stayed fairly consistent. The only exception to the norm was that the car was still a little difficult to get into the entry of the corner. I viewed all this as good as I had started many Daytona races with a car that handled similarly and the track had always come to me over the course of the race.

Manuel drove next, followed by Emil, and then Nick. All three were quick and consistent and we stayed in the back half of the top ten during the early hours of the race.

My next time in the car I drove a double stint, which was uneventful except that the car started to understeer badly in both high and low speed corners. The splitter had gotten knocked off since my first stint, which could possibly explain some of the high speed understeer, but it seemed too extreme to be explained by a splitter. The car had to be wrestled into the corner and then any application of power would send you off at the exit unless you waited until the car was pointed straight down the road.

When I got out of the car Manuel got back in and I started talking with the crew about shock changes. We tried one when Manuel pitted for a driver change with Emil. In the end, we made three shock changes and stiffened the rear bar trying to combat understeer, but nothing seemed to work.

After our second time through the line up we were up to sixth. I got back in for another double stint at about 11:00pm. The understeer had gotten worse. It seemed like the track was going away from us. I stubbornly tried to drive through the understeer, not because that was a particularly smart thing to do, but because I was really mad at myself for missing the setup so badly.

I had my only really close call during this period. We were under a full course caution and I was slowly approaching the bus stop at the back of the line. It was dark, but when I checked my rear view mirror I saw two headlights approaching from behind at a high rate of speed. I turned the car left as hard as I could down to the bottom of the banking. A Daytona Prototype slid straight through the bus stop with all four brakes locked up. I made sure to leave him a lot of room to pass me on the restart. We were still in sixth when I got out of the car, but I had made up a lap on several of the GT cars in front of us, and after they came in for their pit stops we were up to third. We stayed there through Emil and Manuel's stints while I went back to the trailer to lie down for an hour. I've never been able to sleep during the race, but sometimes lying down for a few minutes helps me to recharge.

I went back to the pits while Emil was still in the car. Manuel got us all together and announced that Nick and I would be driving the rest of the race. We were still in third place at the time, but there were some fast cars close behind us so we would need to push hard to stay in contention for a podium.

When Nick got back in he really started to go quickly. He had figured out the car and was doing a great job of driving around the understeer. We held on to third for the next couple hours until our teammates in the #36 TPC Racing Porsche were involved in an accident. They were running second at the time when John Littlechild got hit by a Daytona Prototype while in the NASCAR turn four section of the banking. Unfortunately, the impact caused too much damage for them to continue. As a result, we inherited second position.

Nick and I kept switching off until morning as we pushed hard trying to maintain second. The GT leader was the #71 Farnbacher Porsche, which maintained a three lap lead over us. It became clear well before the end of the race that we had no hope of catching the Farnbacher car. We still weren't handling well and the Farnbacher car seemed to be similar in straight line speed to a Daytona Prototype. In fact, there was a point during the evening when I saw two headlights approaching from behind and I pulled to the bottom of the banking to get out of the way because I thought it was a DP. It was the Farnbacher Porsche.

I got back in for the last time with a little less than two hours remaining. The sun had just come out and as the temperature increased the track became very slick. Even on stickers the car was sliding around a lot, especially in the brake zones. With a little more than an hour remaining there was a final full course yellow. We took the opportunity to complete our final pit stop. I took tires and a full load of fuel. We were good to the end of the race.

The Farnbacher car was still three laps ahead, and the third and fourth place cars were about two minutes behind. I knew a flat tire would knock us off the podium, and I also knew that a full course yellow might bunch up the field a cause a shoot out for second place. For both reasons, I decided to baby the tires the rest of the way. The Hoosiers held together, the track stayed green, and we took a hard earned second place finish.

It was great to see the TPC crew perform at higher and higher levels as the race progressed. The guys really stepped up and I like the direction we're headed in going into the shorter races. Manuel, Emil and Nick were all great teammates and did fantastic work in the car. It can be difficult in a long race when one driver is off the pace and everyone else has to push to make it up. We never had that issue as all the guys really pulled their own weight. I don't know how many professional races and twenty-four hour races we have between the four of us, but I can promise we had a very experienced line up and it showed.

I'm still completely baffled as to how I managed to get the setup so wrong for the race and I can't help think what might have been possible if I had gotten it right, but I think that with the help of the TPC crew we'll get it right for the next round at Homestead. We scored good points at Daytona and I'm hoping to build on that next month in round two.