(Full Photo Gallery below) On Thursday I traveled down to Daytona Beach to spend the weekend at the Rolex 24hrs of Daytona, arguably the biggest endurance race in North America (along with Sebring & Petite). With a handful of my TDI Cup buddies competing in the Fresh From Florida 200 support event on Friday, and former karting mentor Michael Valiante having a solid chance at the Overall win, I figured it was a good year to finally check this event out. Racing is all about connections and there is no better place to cruise the paddock and get your name out there.

Daytona

After arriving in Orlando, then checking into my $42.00 fleabag motel, I made my first trip to the hallowed grounds of Daytona International Speedway on Friday morning. Right away you are blown away by how steep & narrow the high banks are. We have all seen the Daytona 500 on TV, and I promise you it does not do any justice to how completely insane it is to race 3 wide at that place at over 190MPH. It looks barely wide enough for 2 cars, and I think you would need a full climbing harness to scale the bank.

Massive, Steep, Narrow, the banks of DIS

The support race was the Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge Fresh from Florida 200 (thats a mouthful) which had 5 TDI Cup alum competing. Good buddies Joey Atterbury and Devin Cates are teammates and debuted their new TC Motorsports Camaro in the GS class, while 2008 Champion Josh Hurley, as well as Ryan Ellis and Andrew Novich were in the ST class. It was cool to see guys I raced against out there on a big stage, dealing with some real HP (Atterbury told me they got 167mph). Unfortunately there was a lot of bad luck on display, as Devin and Joey were run into by a Porsche and lost a few laps with a cut tire, and Josh was unceremoniously punted out of 5^th place with a few laps to go. Ryan Ellis had a very solid run in the Freedom Motorsports Mazda 3, bring home a top 10 finish, while Novich also had a good run in his Irish Mike’s Jetta coming home 11^th.

Atterbury in the Camaro

Saturday was time for the big boys as the 24 hrs started at 3:30PM. With most of the top sportscar drivers in the world on hand, including most of the Porsche factory ringers, it was due to be good show. The Rolex 24 features two classes competing simultaneously, with the DP class for purpose built Prototypes, and the GT class featuring (heavily) modified production based cars. With a bunch of NASCAR stars in the field the infield was packed with fans ready to party for 24 hours. Among the drivers: Jimmie Johnson, Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti, Jamie McMurray, Justin Wilson, Scott Pruett, Patrick Long, Max Papis, Michael Valiante, AJ Allmendinger, Sebastian Bourdais, Ryan Hunter Reay, Ryan Dalziel, Mike Rockenfeller, as well as actor Patrick Dempsey (pretty sure I saw a chick orgasm because she got to shake his hand). Basically a who’s who of the racing world.

Some of the "names"

Once night set in, the action really ramped up, and it was a very cool atmosphere to see those guys doing 190mph through the night. I purposely wore all of my VW team gear and by doing my best to act like I belonged, I was able to sneak my way into the hot pits, and spend some time on the pit wall. It’s totally surreal to stand 4 ft away from a pit stop where they change, tires, fuel and DRIVER in about 35 seconds. While there I was able to mingle with a bunch of teams and meet some very cool people. Sorry ladies, although I got a good look, I was never able to meet Dr. McDreamy.

Talk about access, on the pitwall

I can’t even describe to you how different things looked when I arrived back to the track on Sunday morning. When I left shortly after Midnight, there was energy in the air, most of the field on the track, and enthusiasm in the pits. When I arrived back around 11AM (~20hrs into the race), I was greeted with the weary faces of drivers & crew, a lot of cars retired to the garage, and the rest hanging together with duct tape and tie wire. It was amazing to see how rough cars that hadn’t even seen contact still looked. 24 hours is a war.

Your Race Winner, a little worse for wear

In the end team Action Express scored a surprise victory in their Porsche Riley, amazingly by only 40 seconds over the # 2 Ganassi car, despite competing 755 laps. Congratulations to drivers Joao Barbosa, Terry Borcheller, Ryan Dalziel, and Mike Rockenfeller. Vancouver BC’s Michael Valiante had the #6 Michael Shank Racing car at the front all race, but unfortunately they suffered an engine failure in the last hour while fighting for the win. Former karting star Jonathon Bomarito brought his Mazda RX8 home for the GT win along with teammates Ham, Haskell and Tremblay.

All in all, a very cool weekend, glad I came, and I have more resolve than ever to be there as a competitor next year. Thanks to the Cates and the Atterbury families for putting up with me, and everybody else who hung out with me this weekend.

Here’s the photo gallery, I apologize for my limited camera skills…

Location: Daytona International Speedway Photos: Jake Thompson