So.... That came and went pretty quickly! Considering the buildup for it, it's quite surreal its already all over and done for another year. But nevertheless, the 2nd Daytona 24H event was even more epic than I was anticipating and truly has kicked off a hugely competitive season ahead. Sorry I'm late to the after party lol.
Firstly, as always, our never ending thanks and appreciation to
@AJ,
@Peelster1 and
@littleregret265 for allowing us to have this amazing experience and providing imo, the best-run race, in the series' history. Also to the commentary, I still say it every time but it has really grown into a great clicking team, always providing great entertainment. A shoutout to
@Fallen_log for his first big stint in Comms, hope you still enjoyed yourself with double duties mate, you did a great job.
Heading into the weekend I was unsure of how ORA would come out of this race. Of course as always I try to keep an optimistic approach and look at the positives we have beneath us. We just had to go out there, aim for 0 damage, minimal extra stops and try to keep pace with schedule as much as possible.
I feel we did that, to the closest point we could. Definitely we had made mistakes here and there (I happened to love and hate turn 1... >_>), a couple setbacks in a DSC and quite a weird confusion at the final restart with
@Hayden norris at the wheel. (That's my bad for falling asleep and not watching lol).
We had great driver changes too, the best I've experienced and not one ounce of Aussie lag from myself for once! But as the time went on, we were still there most of the time, within touch of the head to head DZ and Inferno cars if something were to happen up the road, it was massively encouraging to easily press on with what we had. Our pace wasn't near as quick most of the time though, we were getting flogged down the straights mostly I felt. Could've been our setup maybe but it was too much of a handful to squeeze some top speed out of it, a comfortable setup was more ideal.
The GTD cars... wow lol. They were HUGELY competitive with our GTLM class, I didn't even consider it before a day or so before the race. It was a lot of fun to battle them in the mid field, the retraction of faster class blue flags from us definitely made it feel like one class. There was a moment in the middle of the night that I was catching
@Stephen Vann and
@Harsk100 massive battle and was looking forward to getting in amongst them only have a tiny bit of an advantage at night while I setup seemed to like it a lot more than some of the teams. But unfortunately had a massive moment trying to avoid the unknown limping Escuderia DP, luckily just spun out through the gras and pulled up before the wall. Massive kudos to the GTD cars to mostly beat the GTLM overall, all of those teams kept massive momentum throughout the whole race and those results show. Having only three DP cars overtaking us made it easy to manage track awareness, only encountering them every now and again. Actually was surprising they didn’t seem to have a huge edge on the slower classes on the infield? And only seemed to really start pulling away from us on the straights in the top end.
To the ORA Racing Team drivers,
@Hayden norris,
@Fallen_log,
@KTZ and
@JonoStan96. You guys did a stellar job and proved me right in my confidence that we’d have a huge crack at this race. And while we knew a win was a fair chance away of something dire happening to the other teams, you provided the #51 Z4 with a great result after 24 hours of racing against some mega competition, with some awesome highlights and a showing of competiveness. While starting 11th, finishing 11th overall and 3rd in class on the podium, just 2 laps behind P2 and 3 behind P1 (THAT CLOSE!?). I can not thank you enough for doing this massive task with me, it’s definitely a win for me after ORA’s last 24H result!
A special shoutout to
@JonoStan96 who unfortunately had his internet down in his area due to line maintenance happening on this exact weekend, so sadly could not attend the race with us. You were still a valuable member of our team mate and provided us getting on to the grid and aided our great result that we didn’t even anticipate. I hope we can get a chance to enjoy a race together again mate.
Lastly in my essay lol, my massive congratulations to MWM taking out P1 in DP and overall, a great show of the level of talent to come in the top end of this series. DZ Motorsport P1 in GTLM some mega pace to contend with as well as Inferno (was sad to see both teams have some troubles, but still came out on top
). And to WRS NA for taking out P1 in GTD and making the overall podium!!! Wow guys I definitely think that's the drive of the race, not one ounce of mistake from my viewing, that was truely professional.
I suspect the D24 was just the tip of the iceberg for this year's season, I cannot wait to see you all again on the track and on the stream again. Thank you everyone for the great show
.
) beers. I have always found it interesting as to what other teams teams do strategy wise. 
