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Daytona Test Days

Rolex

06/01/2001

Friday

Before The Night Session

A few pointers after five daylight sessions and before the Friday night session.

If pole is going to be in the 1:39s, as James Weaver suggests, then we ain’t seen nothing yet. Hurley Haywood’s #38 Champion Lola Porsche will be banking on others hitting trouble if 1:43s are this car’s real pace, but it seems as though it could run and run and win the Rolex 48.

Fifth fastest so far today is Tom Volk’s R&S Chevy with an excellent 1:44.155. What does this tell us about which car to run economically and for many, many years? He must be chuckling to be ahead of the second Dyson car (irrelevant at this stage), but more significantly, ahead of the Crawford.

Andy Hartwell caught up with Max Crawford for his view of progress so far. He asked Max what were the major issues concerning the current level of the car’s development.

"Our major issue we are looking at right now is driver confidence and comfort level for the race set-up. Because it is a new car for them to drive they will of course be learning about it as they go. To get the best performance from it they must trust that the car will respond to them and have a good set-up for the 24 hours."

The car looks great now that it has been painted up for battle. "We are very proud and very pleased to see the car painted up in the Lista / Doran colors. The color scheme is very flattering and the car looks gorgeous."

What is the story going around about the Judd engine? " With regard to the concern that the Judd will go the distance, they have worked very hard over the winter on the durability of the engine. I know they have performed exhaustive durability tests on it."

Any concerns about being competitive with a new car right out of the box? "As for the cars chances as an "all-new entity", we are quietly confident due to our experiences so far at the test.”

Do your initial tests suggest the SSC2K will be competitive with the next generation Riley & Scott? "Yes, we do see ourselves as competitive with the new R&S MKlll C."

Question: which is more significant, the TRP SRPll Lola getting down to a 1:47.149, or the Saleen heading up GTS on the day with a 1:47.343? Both teams must be thrilled with their efforts.

The Corvettes are currently in the 1:48 / 1:49 brackets. The quicker SRPlls are mixing it with the quicker GTS cars and the slower SRPs. The opening laps of the race should be very special as the cars display their relative pace on different parts of the track.

There’s a great bunch of cars in the 1:50 / 1:51 area. In amongst them is the faster Marcos Mantara, but the driver line-ups on the GA entry have to be the wrong way round with the two multi-coloured cars. The Pilbeams don’t seem to match Lola pace in SRPll at this stage.

Quickest in GT is the Randy Pobst / Mike Fitzgerald GT3R, but there’s a whole bunch of GT class cars right with this one. Right on the pace already is the Mosler.

There are effectively 50 cars under two minutes. That’s a good race pace for many – keep that up and you’ll be in the top ten. Now who can build in the reliability they’ll need, in addition to that #38 Champion car?