senor honda

See also Post #8 in this very thread
Even a wet December day at Brands hatch cannot dampen the glory that is Jag's normally aspirated Group C beauty. What a machine. Car was offered at the RM Amelia Island sale, 14 March 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQErgDQaRZM


Chris Harris

Mihai Fira
This car, chassis #TWR-J12C-388 started life as an XJR-9 but, by the time it won Daytona in 1990, it was no longer an XJR-9, but an XJR-12, the upgrade being carried by Advanced. The car has an impressive history with over 10 IMSA GTP podiums, including the '90 victory at Daytona, runner up at the same race in '89, also runner up at Sebring in '89 and third there the following year. Its sister car, chassis #288 which won in 1988 at Daytona also undergone a conversion to XJR-12. That car is even more coveted because beyond the '88 victory it also scored the '90 Le Mans win as an XJR-12 (and it also has the dozen obligatory IMSA podiums to its name, mostly 2nd places as it finished usually ahead of #388 but behind the NPTI-built Nissan of Geoff Brabham or Derek Daly).

martin macdonald
Lot 160 - Sold for $2,145,000 1988 Jaguar XJR-9 Chassis no. TWR-J12C-388Engine no. 00415Gearbox no. 89SRD 102

senor honda

The Ferrari Daytonas

• 
• 

The Ferrari Daytona wasn’t given its name by Ferrari. Officially, this Ferrari model is called the 365 GTB/4 to signify its displacement per cylinder (365 cc), its body style (Grand Touring Berlinetta) and its number of camshafts.
However, when the car was shown for the first time at the 1968 Paris Auto Salon, the motoring press nicknamed it the ‘Daytona’ in honor of Ferrari’s 1-2-3 result at the previous year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona – a name which has stuck with the car ever since. And, in another way, a fitting name as examples of the model were fixture at the Rolex 24 at Daytona from 1970 until 1982.
The Daytona was both a revelation and a throwback when it was first unveiled to the public. It’s Pininfarina-designed bodywork was captivating from every angle, and offered great aerodynamics. However, at a time when other companies were moving to mid-engine designs, the Ferrari Daytona continued to use a front-engine layout with a 4.4-liter V12 engine under its long hood. With the power and torque offered by the big V12, it was no surprise that the Ferrari couple became a stalwart on Daytona’s high banks.
A Daytona first appeared at the 24 Hours in 1970, with an example entered by Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (NART) car retiring before the finish. The first success came in 1972, in the shortened six-hour race, with a class victory by a Daytona entered by the Ring Free Oil Racing Team and driven by Charles Reynolds and Clive Baker.
The 1973 race saw a high water mark for the Daytona during the 24 Hours. A NART-entered Daytona driven by Francois Migault and Milt Minter finished a strong second overall, taking class honors as well. Production of the car ended that year, but Daytonas continued to appear for the twice-around-the-clock contest.
Another NART Daytona took class victory in 1975, driven by Jon Woodner and Fred Phillips. That year, the replacement for the Daytona, the 365 GT4 BB, took part in its first 24 Hours.
Daytonas continued to pound around Daytona’s high banks – actor Paul Newman even raced one, in 1977, finishing fifth overall in a Ramsey Ferrari / Modena entry he shared with Elliot Forbes Robinson and Milt Minter. But 1979, four years after the model’s production had ended, would bring its finest performance at the 24 Hours.
By this point, Ferrari had developed the 512 BB LM as its GT racer, developed to take on the overwhelming numbers of Porsches 935s. The lone Daytona that year, entered by Modena Sports Cars for drivers Tony Adamowicz and John Morton, was considered a mere field-filler after qualifying in 24[SUP]th[/SUP] position overall. In fact, the Ferrari nearly didn’t take the green flag after team manager Otto Zipper passed away the night before the race in his hotel room. After nearly withdrawing from the race, the team opted instead to race with a black band across the hood honoring Zipper.
While no threat for high honors based on its pace, the Ferrari Daytona – which was once owned by actor Bobby Carradine – ran reliably throughout the 24 hours except for one trip to the garage to replace a damaged oil line. While much faster GTX-class cars encountered a host of terminal problems, Adamowicz and Morton guided the Ferrari higher and higher through the running order – up to second place overall and first in the GTO class, where it took the checkered flag. It was a stunning result for the aging car – and perhaps the best way for the team to have honored Zipper.
Zipper’s Modena Sports Cars, which prepared the car, was based in Los Angeles – not far from where Scuderia Corsa, which has claimed the last two IMSA GT-Daytona drivers championships, is based.
That same Ferrari Daytona returned for two more Rolex 24 at Daytonas, but didn’t come close to repeating its 1979 result. 1981 would be the last time a Daytona would be seen in the endurance race.

senor honda

From the book
Intriguing Look At Illegalities Within NASCAR
By Michael Daly on December 14, 2002
Format: Hardcover Tom Jensen authors this overdue look at the "black art" of cheating in NASCAR, and along the way manages a decent job of seperating fact from fiction. He delves into the acts of cheating in the sport from its beginnings (when apparant Grand National winner Glenn Dunaway was disqualified and the race win went to Jim Roper) through the 1990s into the 21st century.

Three cheating scandals stand out here, and all three involve teams owned by Junior Johnson. If there is a theme to this book, it is that Junior Johnson was the sport's least honest team owner and the one who always seemed to get benefit of the doubt. The first was the 1973 National 500 at Charlotte. Cale Yarborough won the race, but his car and second-place Richard Petty were protested by Bobby Allison. An extremely long tear-down took place, and NASCAR ultimately said the race results would stand - which led Allison to file a lawsuit against NASCAR, because there was evidence that Cale's Chevrolet, wrenched by Johnson, ran some 70 cubic inches more than allowed by the rules.

If there is an eye-opener in this book, it is the admission by Junior's engine builder at the time, Robert Yates, that that particular engine and others built for Junior were indeed illegal; Yates states it measured 500 CID, versus the 431 limit of the time. Actually, though, Yates' admission isn't a surprise, as former crew chief J.C. "Jake" Elder stated in several 1990s interviews that Junior's crew chief Herb Nab acknowledged to him that Junior usually ran illegal displacement in his engines.

The second involves the infamous "Pettygate" Charlotte race of 1983. Jensen doesn't delve into any new ground here, which is a shortfall, because there was more to that scandal than is usually acknowledged. Petty's team had won twice in 1983 but had struggled against Johnson and also the DiGard Racing team headed by Gary Nelson (and powered by Yates) in horsepower (Jensen deals at insufficient length with cheating by Gary Nelson with DiGard and other teams elsewhere in the book), and Maurice Petty built (and readily acknowledged after the race) a 381 CID engine. What is underappreciated is that Petty beat Junior's driver Darrell Waltrip - because Waltrip backed off in Turn Two and let Petty take a big lead. There was speculation then and later that Waltrip was also running more CID than allowed, and given Yates' and Herb Nab's admissions there is no reason not to believe that Waltrip usually ran illegal displacement.

It is a shame because it tarnishes the accomplishments of Waltrip (a great driver despite also being overrated as such) and also Cale Yarborough (a superior driver incapable of being overrated), who won the majority of his races (55 of 83 career wins) and all three of his titles in Johnson racecars. It also puts a period to NASCAR's long-running practice of being more nitpicky to certain teams over others (notably Johnson's), notably Petty Enterprises, Wood Brothers Racing, Ranier Racing, Bill Elliott's racing team, Hoss Ellington Racing (whose owner cheated mostly for fun and readily admitted such), and (somewhat ironic given how much success they enjoyed) DiGard Racing (one of the most revealing such episodes involved Bumpergate at Daytona in 1982; NASCAR made Gary Nelson lower the rear bumper on the DiGard car to increase drag; Nelson angrilly had it slapped on with insecure fasteners to fall off on the track; he denies that he had it deliberately slapped on to fall off during a race, but there is no reason to believe him); this nitpickery practice does continue today, though at a far less blatant level.

Another who got a lot more than his fair share of NASCAR nitpickery was Harry Hyde, whose cars won the 1970 title with Bobby Isaac and whose cars were regularly torn down more thoroughly than most, such as in the scandal-plagued '73 National 500; Hyde's car was torn down four times during the weekend and when NASCAR demanded another teardown, he refused and was disqualified. Hyde also got swept into the Nitrousgate scandal of 1976; after Daytona 500 qualifying his Dodge was found with a moveable flap on the radiator, which allowed air to flow more efficiently and increase aero slickness; the flap met the letter of NASCAR's rulebook but amid the discovery of speed-enhancing nitrous oxide bottles on several cars, NASCAR ruled it didn't meet the spirit.

Nitpickery showed in a later area dealt with by Jensen - the "Tiregate" New Hampshire 300 of late August 1998. On final stops with some 73 laps to go Jeff Gordon took two tires to the four taken by Mark Martin, John Andretti, and others (this was when tires were much softer and wore more easily than in 2001-2, when Goodyear went with compounds of such hardness that wear became almost impossible); under such circumstances Gordon should have been swamped by cars with four fresh tires, but instead he outpulled the cars on four fresh tires and easily won a race he had not run all that competitively in throughout that day.

Jensen details the inaccuracy of claims by Jack Roush of chemical treatment of tires by Ray Evernham, but ignores that this was a red herring to begin with - the real issue being Goodyear playing favorites on tires, a practice angrilly noted a year later by team owner Andy Petree in a spat over lack of access to Goodyear tires for much-needed test sessions, and also briefly discussed by Geoff Bodine in Shaun Assael's superb NASCAR book "Wide Open: Days & Nights On The NASCAR Trail."

The third big scandal discussed in the book was Jimmy Spencer's two restrictor plate victories of 1994; once again, we have a cheating scandal involving Junior Johnson racecars. In fairness to Spencer, comments about his ability by Jeff Gordon's stepdad John Bickford (made in naturally fawning comparison to Gordon's ability) are a little out of line, as Spencer had shown superb drafting ability years earlier in Travis Carter's Chevrolet and showed it again in Dick Moroso's Grand National Ford, Travis Carter's Winston-sponsored Fords, and James Finch's Grand National Pontiacs.

Regardless, it should be clear that Spencer's two Winston Cup wins were achieved with an illegal restrictor plate manifold; that it could have escaped NASCAR pre-race inspection is not as difficult as Jensen implies at points, given the ingenuity of raceteams.

One area where Jensen could have set the record straight but does not even discuss is suspicion about the 1984 Firecracker 400. During "The Call" mini-controversy of 1995 there was some question about the legality of Richard Petty's 200th win, about how the engine supposedly was over the limit on displacement. There ought to be no question about the legality of that win or all but one or two other Petty wins, given how NASCAR scrutinized his cars more than most, how Petty did not show more horsepower than race favorite Cale Yarborough (Petty won on superior handling and the car's better drafting ability; Cale's Ranier Chevrolets of the time were noticeably inferior in handling than Petty's Pontiacs or Bobby Allison's Buicks), and also how the Pettys had feuded with NASCAR's France family almost from the beginning (Lee Petty losing the 1950 Grand National title on a questionable points penalty), making claims of a "Call" going to him implausible. Jensen likewise should have noted that in the '73 controversy Petty readily admitted running a mixture of engine cylinders of varying displacements - a few over the legal limit, several well under it, for an average within the rules. As Bobby Allison himself noted during the Pettygate scandal, "Richard shoots straighter than most."

In all, though, the book is worth having for providing information on a "black art" in NASCAR racing. Jensen provides a look at the psychology of cheating when he notes Darrell Waltrip's infamous 1976 quip, "If you don't cheat, you look like an idiot; if you cheat and don't get caught, you look like a hero; if you cheat and get caught, you look like a dope."

senor honda

TRG returns to Porsche fold for 2017 The Racers Group team that gave Porsche its last outright victory in the 2003 Daytona 24 Hours is returning to the marque for 2017.

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Friday, 25 November 2016

Marshall Pruett / Images by LAT

New Zealand's Shane van Gisbergen will increase his presence with WeatherTech Racing during its IMSA GT Daytona campaign in 2017. The Kiwi, who leads the Australian Supercars championship with one round remaining, has been a regular in the WeatherTech Racing lineup at the Rolex 24 at Daytona (pictured, top) and has also starred with McLaren in the Blancpain Endurance Series where he won the most recent title.

senor honda

[h=2]Ferrari Finali Mondiali debuts at Daytona[/h] Thursday, 01 December 2016


RACER Staff / Image by LAT

Above: Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen will take a few laps around Daytona International Speedway on Sunday.

The first Ferrari Finali Mondiali to be held in the United States gets underway today at Daytona International Speedway. The four-day event – which is taking place in North America for the first time – brings competitors from the European, North American and Asia Pacific series of the Ferrari Challenge together for a battle in their Ferrari 458 Challenge EVOs. The Ferrari Finali Mondiali previously has been held in Abu Dhabi, Spain and Italy.
On Sunday, Scuderia Ferrari F1 teammates Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel will take to the track after the GTs and the F333 SPs – the first public appearance of Formula 1 cars in Daytona International Speedway history. The pair, at the wheel of two F60s, will perform fast laps, simulated pit stops, tire changes and will cross the finish line in tandem to recall the legendary clean sweep in the 24 Hours of 1967.

senor honda

See also:
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/g...history-2.html



Rick Mears' 24 Hour Daytona debut

Saturday, 03 December 2016
Marshall Pruett / Images by Pruett, IMSA, IMS)

When: 1979
Where: Daytona International Speedway
What: 24 Hours of Daytona
Who: Rick Mears
The man known as "Rocket" Rick Mears turned 65 today. Thousands of words have been written about his peerless IndyCar career, and with the Californian's great achievements in open-wheel racing firmly entrenched in our memories, we wanted to celebrate a lesser-known aspect of the Californian's career for his birthday.
The four-time Indy 500 winner will forever be linked with the Brickyard, but his brief foray into sports car racing continues to stand as a rather obscure aspect of Mears' three decades in competition.
He made his debut at the longest endurance race on the North American calendar in 1979, the great 24 Hours of Daytona, with renowned Porsche tuner/driver Bruce Canepa and sports car stalwart Monte Shelton.
The big IMSA season opener spanned Feb. 3-4, and for Mears, who would go on to win his first Indy 500 a few months later with Roger Penske, tackling the high banks of Daytona International Speedway and its rapid infield road course proved was an easy transition.
For Canepa, who also owned and ran the team, recalling Mears' first sports car race brought back a wave of excellent memories.
"We went to Daytona in 1979 and none of us had been there; Rick had never raced there," Canepa told RACER. "We drove a two-year-old Porsche that was listed as a 935 against real 935s. We were actually in a 934.5. It was a car that I purchased used from George Dyer; he didn't like it and he fire-saled that thing to me. It's the only way I could've gotten it at that time in my life, and I ended up with the turbocharged Porsche racecar.
"I did a couple of races with it before Daytona and then we decided to go to the 24 Hours. Rick and I had been friends for a while; he's also a West Coast guy. I'd done Pikes Peak and he had done Pikes Peak. We did similar things at that point. He did it full-time and I did it for fun.
"We like the same kinds of racecars, and when the opportunity came up to go to Daytona, I don't even know how we got there but it was just a conversation, I said, 'Would you like to do it?' And of course, you know what his answer was to that, you don't even have to think about it. So Rick became my co-driver along with Monte Shelton. Three rookies at Daytona."
Pitted against obscenely powerful and brutally fast 935s, Canepa's 934.5 was never going to challenge the frontrunners on outright pace.
"Well, and it is funny, because we were driving the hardest of those turbocharged cars," he said. "We were driving a car that was built in 1977 against the new [1979] 935s and there was a big difference. Those [1977] cars didn't have the relocated suspension points, they didn't have the tub sitting nice and low, which lowered the roll centers and got the motor low as well.
"They all had twin turbos and we had a single turbo with a huge amount of lag. We didn't know any of the tricks that the other guys doing, the Peter Greggs, the Interscopes, and the Whittingtons. At that time, we were in a streetcar with flares on it; that is honestly what we drove. It had a little over 500hp. In fact, I think my streetcar drove better than that damn car."
Despite the 934.5's vast deficiencies compared to the brand-new twin-turbo Porsches, exceptional driving from Canepa's upstart team, with Mears as the standard bearer, kept the No. 11 car in the hunt.
"Needless to say, Rick is an absolute first-class act," Canepa continued. "He doesn't make a mistake in a racecar. He doesn't try to prove anything to anybody. He is fast without blinking. He just does it. We went down there to Daytona and didn't expect to prove anything. We wanted to do the race so we could say we did it. We wanted to have fun, to have a good time. And that is exactly what we did, but we also had a shot at doing something special and Rick was amazing in that car."
The rookie trio, led by Mears, pulled off a minor miracle by reaching the finish line third overall in the 934.5.
As someone who made his name in off-road racing before turning his attention to Indy cars, Mears' impressive debut at the 24 Hours of Daytona was simply another demonstration of how vast talent has no boundaries.
"He was definitely a huge part of how we finished," Canepa said. "I mean, we all drove our turns and stuff, but Rick was a big part in us finishing third overall, which was kind of unheard of in an old car. What can I say? That guy, he was a superstar, he is a superstar. He was a natural talent in a racecar. If he wasn't a natural sports car talent, then he definitely worked hard enough to earn his stripes, because by the time he got there he could do pretty much anything he wanted to do. It was obvious in everything he drove. It's still amazing to think we finished third overall; it surprised everybody as much as it did us."
Having formed a stronger bond across 24 hours of endurance racing action, Canepa and Mears stayed in touch after Daytona and remain friends today.
"I went to Indy all the years that he drove," he said. "I didn't miss many races back then. To stand down in Turn 1 at Indy and watch him come sail in there in those days, whether it be qualifying where the race, it was pretty freaking awesome. You could tell he was doing it different than a whole lot of other guys. First of all, he looked like he was half-asleep resting doing it!"
With Mears destined for Indy 500 glory after standing on the podium at Daytona, Canepa says he's proud to have witnessed his friend's immediate (albeit brief) impact in endurance racing.
"He's a very real guy, and he deserves as much applause as he can get," he added. "He got the applause when we raced IndyCars, but his time in sports car racing gets forgotten. It should not be forgotten about."
After Daytona, Mears would go on to make a handful of appearances – mostly in Porsche 935s – and added another podium with a third-place finish at the Watkins Glen 6 Hours in 1981. At the end of the 1981 season, the Rocket narrowed his focus to IndyCar and went on to add three more Indy 500 wins in 1984, 1988, and 1991.


Battling Tom Sneva en route to 1979 win,Penske PC-6

senor honda

Foyt, Waltrip race an Aston Martin in 1983 24 hours of Daytona

Marshall Pruett / Victory Lane image by Kevin Jeannette When: 1983
Where: Daytona International Speedway
What: Rolex 24 at Daytona
Who: A.J. Foyt, Darrell Waltrip
Take Super Tex, NASCAR's biggest mouth, and add in an unknown driver from South America, and you just might have the weirdest driver lineup ever seen at the Daytona 24 Hours.
And it gets better. Four-time Indy 500 winner A.J. Foyt, two-time Winston Cup champ Darrell Waltrip and ... according to the press release, "two-time Argentine Formula II champion Guillermo Maldonado" came together in 1983 to contest the famous endurance race with the fugly Aston Martin Nimrod prototype.
The melty, frog-inspired, V8-powered Aston was miles from being considered a long shot at IMSA's biggest event, but it did have one thing going for it: prime backing from Pepsi. The Aston Martin, built and run by the Nimrod team in England, was almost eight seconds slower than the fastest Porsche 935s in the field. With the notorious reliability contained within the German cars, the Aston program was destined to become a short-lived promotional exercise for its beverage sponsor.
Pepsi's cash made it possible to lure huge stars like Foyt and Waltrip into the program, and with the NASCAR driver's over-the-top personality in mind, the outcome was pure comedy.
Waltrip's pre-event quotes, given to former IndyCar pit reporter and "Pepsi-Cola Special Programs Manager" Jack Arute, speak to the fish-out-of-water sports car experience about to unfold:



"I was surprised how much [the Aston Martin Nimrod] had in common with the way a stock car goes around Daytona," Waltrip said. "Of course, my helmet was bumping the roof and my knees were scrunched up to my chin. Other than that, this is the kind of car I think is capable of winning the race and the kind of car I like to drive. This British team certainly seems to have a knowledge of this kind of racing. I'm comfortable."
What a brilliant line.


Yes, Darrell, one would hope the team in charge of sending you out in a 200mph prototype at Daytona would "have a knowledge of this kind of racing ..."
For Foyt, whose last endurance race resulted in a historic win for Ford in 1967 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it fulfilled the wish of the big boss of NASCAR who had been requesting his presence at IMSA's crown jewel, and with the Aston Martin Nimrod opportunity extended, he was able to turn the trip into a meaningful outing.
"Bill France called me three or four times to come run and I finally went because my daddy talked me into it," Foyt told RACER's Robin Miller. "He was in a hospice and dying of cancer and told me to go out and have some fun."


The fun, as you might suspect, was delivered by good old "DW."
"Then Waltrip calls me and says there's no way he's driving a car with a welding torch in it," Foyt continued. "I told him it wasn't a welding torch – the Brits called flashlights a torch, and they must have said something about putting a torch inside the car and he got concerned. That was pretty damn funny."
As expected, the Aston Martin "Pepsi Challenger" broke soon after the green flag waved.
"The Aston Martin blew up and I don't think I even got to drive it before it blew," Foyt recalled.
The January trip to Daytona, in the name of fun, ended in a less than glorious manner for Super Tex. Or had it?
"Then Preston Henn came down around midnight and asked if I wanted to drive his Porsche 935," Foyt said. "Hell, I'd never driven a Porsche so I wasn't sure how it shifted, and they had a spare car so I sat in that and practiced before I got into the racecar. They said later that Bob Wollek wasn't too happy they put me in the car, but I think I did OK."
Entered in an Aston Martin Nimrod to start the race, the first car Foyt drove in the 1983 Daytona 24 Hour contest was a Porsche 935 with the world's grumpiest Frenchman. Foyt's pace in the rain behind the wheel of that monstrous twin-turbo 935 is still spoken of with reverie by those who witnessed A.J.'s masterful performance.
He might have pocketed Pepsi's money heading into the event, but he came away with something even better: a trip to Victory Lane as the overall winner alongside "Brilliant Bob" Wollek, Henn and Claude Ballot-Lena.
Not bad for an unexpected opportunity.
"I hadn't been in a sports car for almost 20 years and it was fun," Foyt said. "But I really wanted to win that race for daddy. And Bob and I became good friends."

Preston Henn passed away April 2017 See also post #12

senor honda

Several PAGES on the 2017 Daytona Rolex 24 can be found here:
and other places on Tampa Racing:
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/a...tt-others.html

senor honda

[h=1]Racing in Daytona Beach[/h] Since 1929 when Major Henry Segrave set his final land speed record on the white sandy beaches of the "World's Most Famous Beach," the Daytona Beach area has become synonymous with the high-octane sport of racing. Daytona International Speedway, the world's first motorsports stadium, hosts the area’s most popular races:
Speedweeks and DAYTONA 500 (Feb. 18-26, 2017)
Bike Week motorcycle races (Mar. 10-19, 2017)
Coke Zero 400 (Jun. 30-Jul. 2, 2017)
Each year, millions of visitors descend upon Daytona Beach and the surrounding areas to witness racing history in the making. Even when there aren’t big events happening, race fans can visit one of the many speedway parks in the area.
[h=6]National Racing Landmarks and Museums[/h] A national racing landmark, Volusia Speedway Park on State Road 40 in Barberville is home of the Dirt Car Nationals every February. The New Smyrna Beach Speedway offers sanctioned NASCAR races throughout the year. The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, a 10,000 square foot homage to all forms of motorsports, is located at Daytona International Speedway. And various historical racing museums such as the Living Legends of Auto Racing in South Daytona entertain motorsports enthusiasts year-round. Be sure to add a self-guided walk through Birthplace of Speed Park in Ormond Beach and the beach racing display at the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and Museum for historical perspective.
[h=6]VISIT FLORIDA Daytona Beach-Based Racing Team[/h] With VISIT FLORIDA Racing based in Daytona Beach, we love to cheer on our No. 90, a Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype that races in the most prestigious endurance racing series. So whether you’re a race fan, car buff or just enjoy the vibrant atmosphere of a motorcycle event, Daytona Beach is the place for you.