2018 ChampCar 14-Hours of Daytona Race Summary
April 7, 2018 - On this day, I was able to return to Daytona International Speedway to take part in the 14-hours of Daytona with ChampCar, formerly known as ChumpCar. Krueger Tuned Racing was entered in a 1989 Mazda RX-7, with a V6 swapped in from a late 90's Chevy Camaro. This car debuted at this race in 2016 and were plagued by a mysterious speed sensor issue that took us 1/2 the race to fix. The solution? Cutting the speed sensor cable. The 2018 race featured 129 entrants, with 45 cars being in Class C with us. The classes are determined by engine displacement, with Class D being the largest.
The race began under sunny skies, with a threat of rain in the forecast. At 9 am, my cousin JC took the green flag. We started 3 laps down due to being at 522 points, with 500 being the max value. This caused us to take the green flag in 122nd place. The first 2 hours were plagued by several cautions, including a
very scary one (but no injuries). Our plan was to run 2-hour stints, which we figured we would be safe to do with our new 20 gallon fuel cell. Unfortunately, near the end of the stint, the car suffered from some fuel starvation, but only in turn 1. We theorized since we were flat out from the bus stop through turn 1, then the car was under hard braking into a left turn that the fuel was sloshed to the front right and enough away from the fuel pump and alternate pick up. We tried several things, like shifting earlier and not going flat out after the bus stop, but nothing really helped. JC put down a 2:20.907 lap near the end of his 33 lap stint. Our best time in 2016 was 2:28. At the time we entered the pits, JC had moved up to 62nd place.
My oldest brother, Chuck was the next out and we continued the near 2 hour stint. There were only a few cautions, which allowed us to continue to move up in the standings. Chuck's best lap was a 2:25.249 during his 40 lap stint and moved up to 35th when we pit. My uncle, Walt was the next out in a shorter 80 minute stint. He's 71 years old and still knows how to put together solid laps. He put down a 2:30.380 and moved up to 33rd when he entered the pits to change drivers after 29 laps. My cousins friend, Ian was the next in the car at 2:20 pm. We could see the bad weather was coming and he only made it 14 laps before the race was red flagged due to lightning, hard rain and some serious wind. The red flag lasted an hour and Ian went back out for another hours. Ian ran a 2:24.322 before the rain came and put in a total of 37 laps.
Now it was my turn to get out on track, at 5:15 pm. Ian brought the car in at 28th place. The track was mostly dry by the time I went out, but still had some damp spots on the infield sections. My first lap was faster than I went in 2016 by 2 seconds and I was fortunate to not have any on track issues. There was only one caution, for 3 or 4 laps, but we did have a strategy issue that caused us to lose 1 1/3 of a lap. We planned to put the lights on the car at the pit stop after me, around 7 pm, but while I was out on track, the officials told everyone we needed lights on at 6 pm. So I had to make an unscheduled pit stop and it happened just when a FCY had ended. Had I come in a lap sooner, we would have been in much better shape. My best lap of
2:20.565 came on lap 170; I was on track from lap 143 to 181, 39 laps.
Ian went back out for another stint, but was only able to make it 3 laps before another 1-hour lightning delay occurred again. In total, he ran 29 laps and moved us up to 22nd place overall and 15th in class. His fastest lap this stint was 2:24.012, before the rain came and 2:35.943 after the rain. JC was the final driver for KTR and put in 28 wet laps. The track dried some, but it was very one lined in most places. His best lap was 2:28.015. Somehow, we lost 2 places and finished 24th overall (19th if you remove EC) and 13th in class C. Class C had 8 of the top 10 finishers, so it was by far the most competitive class.
Racing at Daytona is such an awesome experience. For those that don't know, my Dad raced in the 24-hours of Daytona in 1967 with Brock Yates, Sr in a 1966 Dodge Dart and finished 15th overall. So anytime I can race on the same track my Dad did, is special. It's amazing to share this with my family and we were very proud of our finish and the fact that we only had 1 issue (the lights) the whole race. All told, we ran 238 laps (actually 241 due to our penalty), which is over 800 miles. Now on to some videos.
My fastest lap.
My full stint.
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(set the fastest lap)
And we're gonna continue doing battle in basically identically prepared ND's at the next 3 National SCCA Solo events in April: San Diego Match Tour, Crows Landing Tour, and Crows Landing ProSolo.
