After reflecting on the race I had a few more thoughts that I wanted to share. Here are a couple fun stats. We had 104 cars in our race! That’s a HUGE field. Actually it was the largest field of cars to ever start a race at Daytona International Speedway. There were 59 cars in the GS field and 45 cars in ST. I qualified the car on pole in the ST class and was able to lead 30 laps while only being in the car for 35 laps. With only slightly over 2 laps remaining in the race my co-driver was in 1st place when the half-shaft broke and we had to pull out of the race.

Here are a couple of pictures from the race that were moments that really caught my attention and I thought I would share the story behind them.

This picture shows the spun car of Chris Gleason. This happened in turn 1 on the second restart of the race. This car was in the GS class, so it was ahead of me on the restart. We started about 15 seconds behind the back of the GS field, so I came into turn 1 with no one in front of me. As I hugged the inside wall the place where this M3 was parked backwards was hidden from my view. All the sudden appearing out of nowhere was this Bimmer looking me straight in the eye. I made a quick swerve to the right and watched my mirrors for the big crash behind me. Well the wreck didn’t happen, but it was funny watching every one of the cars behind me make the same evasive move that I had to make. It was a very quick moment, but one of the ones that really stuck out in my head. Then when this picture showed up online, I thought I would share the story.

This is really the moment that stuck with me the most from the race. This was the move that I was talking to everyone about in the pits after I got out. Here’s the scenario. I was leading coming down the front straight. Bob Endicott was in second right behind me, and Nick Wittmer was in third. Nick had a good run coming out of the bus stop and decided not to pop out on Bob, but instead push him past me. So Nick was pushing Bob down the straight away and there I was a sitting duck out in front of them. So Bob went where I expected, to the inside for the pass. But what I didn’t see coming was Nick going high, right as we crossed the start finish line. It’s funny how quick things happen in racing, here I was out in front leading the race. Then just a couple of seconds later I find myself braking from about 150 mph door to door sandwiched between 2 competitors. I knew we had a long way to go, and I didn’t want to risk a collision which would have definitely resulted in a huge wreck, so I got on the brakes just a little harder than the other 2 guys and fell into third. I knew I could make up the positions later, but didn’t realize that by the next lap I would once again be in the lead. It was a lot of fun drafting on the high banks of Daytona and swapping positions back and fourth.

Here is a picture of the start of the race. There I am leading everyone under the green flag! This was the only time I saw the maroon RSX on my right all day. On the start Endicott (shown right behind me) fell into second and we ran away with the race.