So you want to race at Daytona? Here’s the truth of it

Posted by Mikel on January 26th, 2012 at 07:57pm

Following up on my last piece on the 50^th running of the Daytona 24 hours, I thought I’d give you a little look into how some of these drivers find their way here.

There are a few tiers to the teams and driver combos so let’s take a look at that.

• The all out professional racing team who have a corporate sponsor or manufacturer behind them and have ability to hire whichever driver they choose. An example would be SunTrust or Ganassi (although I’m pretty sure if Memo Rojas left so would the Telmex $$)
• More often you get the professional outfit that does not have the full sponsorship or manufacturer support that needs to boost the budget to make it work. An example of this would be Mike Shank racing & Starworks. They bring in a gentleman driver or possibly a partially funded professional who can help fund the project and still allow the team to have a chance of a good result. Sometimes even these gentleman drivers can get around the track pretty well and with limited stints during the race, they manage to keep the car intact so when the hot shots get in they are still in the hunt.
• The team that has been created by a rich gentleman driver who uses his resources to surround themselves with the best equipment, and co-drivers. Flying Lizard comes to mind here.
• The team that has been created or evolved into an arrive & drive special whereby they bring in the gentlemen drivers from the amateur ranks (Porsche club etc) and offer them a turn key operation where they feel like a pro for the weekend. They just show up and are catered to the whole weekend with coaches, hospitality etc. TRG and Alex Job have perfected this process.

Sports car racing, in general, has always been a playground of the rich whereas in F1 you can be a rich team owner or sponsor however the structure of sports car racing allows the rich to not only be at the race but be in it also. This may sound like a bad thing, but for some of my fellow racers this has enabled them a livelihood for many years.

As we have spoken about with the current influx of pay drivers in F1, racing is not structured like some other sports where the tickets sales, TV rights and associated team gear pay the sportsmen’s salary.

All teams (unless a fully backed manufacturer, and even then long gone are the days where even those teams don’t gain sponsorship dollars from outside sources), have to raise the money to buy, run and staff their teams every year and with the lack of big prize money the only option is sponsorship or some other form of funding. So what’s a talented racing driver to do? Not many of those tier 1 seats come available very often and how do you get to show your skills if you can’t get in a seat to prove yourself? All drivers dream to get into that tier 1 status, but you’ve got to get your butt in a seat first. Luckily or skillfully for some, they have been able to make enough of a name for themselves to be selected but many are still looking for that chance.

So begins the yearly pilgrimage to Daytona, I tried it for a few years but the ego bashing was a bit much for me.

Question- “Hello sir, I was inquiring about the open seat you were advertising on the bathroom wall?”

answer- “ well, how much money you got?”

Little did I know when I first went to Daytona looking for a drive, and was only asked $1,500 for a ride with a team who knew me, it was actually a compliment. I was unaware I was not going to become a household name and lavish in my many victories and millions.

That being  said, come the pre race testing days there are many a talented driver still pounding the pavement and burning the cell phone minutes to somehow do this very thing. As I said, the gentleman driver really is the savior if not the essence of sportscar racing, and the hope for the professional driver is to find these opportunities.

The Tiers

A tier 2 ride can still bring in the best of the best (like Allan Mcnish for instance), where the team still stands a great chance of success and the team is still geared towards winning, the paying gentleman driver is usually willing to give up time allocation in the car to gain success and some of that budget they brought in was to hire the right guys to do it.

A tier 3 team is a great place to end up just as well, it usually means the team/owner driver has to know, respect and like you a lot and nursing that relationship is essential to getting invited back year after year. It sometimes means biting your tongue every once in a while, and offering tips and many words of encouragement along the way. You may even have to partake in a meal, trip or a golf game or two that you weren’t too keen on just to keep the gravy train rolling, but that’s a part of many businesses right?

Tier 4 is usually reserved for the GT field, where a team brings 4 or so cars and allocates 1 as the hero car, this is filled with good drivers and gives the team the success to entice the others to join in the fun. Some of the budget from all the other cars pays for this, also a great place to be. Next is where it gets a little less fun, as the rest of the team is filled with the rookie gentlemen drivers, this is the last hope for the hard working ride hustler. What it means is you’ll be in the race, but what it also means is you will probably not be in the best equipment and any hope of success will be dashed by the 300Ib real estate mogul who runs it off the road every 3^rd lap while being 15 seconds off the pace.

You’ll also be having to answer remedial questions all weekend long about apexes and gear selection, your nearly in the realm of racing school instructor at this point, you may not even let your friends know your in the race, should they hunt for your position on the timing and scoring in the middle of the night. What your hoping for here is the team owner notices your superlative skills and promotes you to the hero car at the next race.

So when you tune in to SPEED to here Calvin Fish expounding the virtues of AJ Allmendinger’s race craft, spare a thought for the driver left in the wings, or already on his way back to the airport, trying to come up with a new master plan for next year.

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