(Scott Pruett is one of America’s great road racers. He also happens to be the reigning co-champion of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, along with Memo Rojas, his co-driver of the No. 01 TELMEX Lexus- Riley. Pruett is writing a regular blog both after a race weekend and in the days leading up to the next event on the 2009 schedule. Following is a preview of Saturday’s Brumos Porsche 250 at Daytona International Speedway – from the champion’s perspective.)
As we get ready for our second trip of the year to Daytona, the one thing that really sticks out is just how totally opposite the two races are.
When we go there in January, you need to be fast, but you can give up a tenth or two for reliability and consistency. For the 24 hours, there’s no doubt that there’s nobody you’d rather be teamed up with than the Ganassi guys and Lexus. We come in there as drivers knowing that if we don’t make a mistkae and if we stay out of trouble, we’re going to be in the mix at the end because the team is just meticulous and in six years we’ve never had a Lexus engine failure and the result has been three wins and a second in the last four years.
The “250” is the exact opposite. Consider that in January, the race itself is 24 hours, this weekend, the entire event lasts seven-and-a-half hours as we get on track at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday for practice and the race will be over by 4:30 p.m. We have only an hour-and-a-half of practice and 15 minutes of qualifying, so it’s crucial to be fast right off the truck. If you have to chase the set-up, you simply won’t have enough time to make many changes. We’ll practice, then qualify and take the green flag to begin the race all within five hours.
Of course, the approach to the race is totally different as well. In January, it’s reliability. In July, it’s all about speed. Daytona is one of the fastest tracks we’ll go all year and there’s so much straightaway. There’s definitely a difficult balance to find between the combination of the infield and the oval. Last year’s race was the closest in Grand-Am history when we were able to come off the last turn and pass the GAINSCO car on the straightaway right before the finish line. Hopefully, we can provide everyone a show that’s just as exciting this year.
With all that said, we just need to keep doing what we’re doing. That’s one of the great things about the Ganassi organization. The preparation is second to none and when we climb in the car on Saturday morning, we know the team will give us a great car.
One exciting thing about this race is that we’re going to have a Ganassi/Lexus team car with Toyota NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers Kyle Busch and Scott Speed. That adds an interesting piece to the puzzle, but we’re happy to have them. They’re both great drivers so it should be a positive and I’m sure the fans will love it.
Speaking of the fans, I’m really looking forward to Saturday. The crowd is going to be just tremendous. Our event is right before the NASCAR race and we’re going to have some NASCAR drivers in our race as well, so we’ll be running in front of the biggest crowd in Grand-Am history. What’s exciting is that we’ll have the chance to introduce Grand-Am racing to a lot of people who may not have seen us before. One thing we’ve found is that when we expose what we do to new fans they usually love it. They love the good hard racing, the fender-to-fender and wheel-to-wheel racing we produce here in Grand-Am.
Thanks for checking in and we’ll give you an update on Monday after the race.
