Rolex Friday: Atmosphere and interviews

Friday, unless a team is fixing a broken car or worrying about technical issues noted during qualifying, is a less exciting day in the garage area at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.  Except that there are no less exciting days in endurance racing.  There is continued qualifying, testing, full engine changes, cleaning and the general preparation for tomorrow’s race.

Drivers and crew zip around the garages in golf carts, entire engines are replaced, cars are shined and polished, autograph hunters wait both patiently and impatiently around the garages with the most recognizable driver names, many of whom do not race Grand-Am full time, but enjoy the spectacle and challenge of beginning their racing season with a historic 24 hour race.  Whistles sound, horns blow, and drivers walk fast.  Very fast.  While cars still spend time on the track, the atmosphere in the garages Friday seems far less hectic than that on Thursday.

Perhaps that is just because of the electric feeling in the garage under lights the night before.  Race day will dawn (twice, in this case) like High Noon, with the sun shining high in the sky and waiting for the first man to squint.  Dark in the garage, which really only happens for Thursday practice and Saturday during the race, brings an extra frisson of tension.  The temperature dropped dramatically, and even with the track lit, the dark is highlighted where the lights no longer reflect off the smooth and shiny surfaces of the cars.  Brake lights flicker and drivers rush back and forth to get in some necessary darkness practice.  Teams who experienced a crash or failure work late and hurry to fix the problems.

After that glitter of cars under the lights and welding in the garage, Friday’s heat and full day’s work might seem a bit less glamorous.  Instead, Friday became more of a time for the real work of racing.  Changing out engines, fluid checks after running much shorter runs in practice, for some teams, it was a time of returning “to our test motor cause we had a problem with the new one, we should be ok with it!!!” as Chip Ganassi driver Juan Pablo Montoya put it on Twitter.  Otherwise, the work is certainly being put in, but not such that appeals to the casual fan.  This is the actual work of racing, not the champagne-spraying, trophy girl kissing, victory celebrations.

Of course, there is the other part of the actual work of racing, and that is finding sponsorship and negotiating contracts, which is part of what my discussion with Corsa PR1 driver Jeff Westphal entailed.  A young driver who won the 2008 Pacific F2000 championships, he saw that the availability of sponsorship to stay racing improved, for now, by moving to sportscar racing instead of attempting to make his way further in the open wheel categories.  The full interview will be found on the special Formula1Blog Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona podcast.

For drivers who have, and are, competing in the top flights of international racing, Scott Pruett (overall Rolex winner in 1994, 2007, and 2008; Rolex Grand-Am DP champion in 2004 and 2008) and Sebastien Bourdais (four time Champ Car champion from 2004-2007 and former F1 driver for Toro Rosso, finished 24 Heures du Le Mans second overall in 2009), who I also interviewed for the podcast today, this race is one of history and close racing.  Those interviews will also be on the podcast.

So, Friday at the 2010 Rolex was a time to watch the teams work, as the following pictures show.  To see the entire set of pictures from both Thursday and Friday posted to Twitter, follow this link.  More pictures will be available soon.

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