2nd Annual GTPlanet 24 Hours of Daytona

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I wasn't involved in this as a participant of any kind but I follow the series somewhat. Some people I race with are involved as drivers & team managers, I watch at least a portion of every stream if I'm available at the time.

I made a similar post to this at the end of last season, just to make sure you all knew that there are some people watching from a fans point of view.
Anyway, hats off to everyone, I'll be watching the streams all year. :cheers:
 
Now that I have gotten some sleep. I would like to thank AJ and everyone involved with putting on the Daytona 24. Lightning Speed motorsports team did an excellent job of working together for what we believe was a success for us. All drivers did an awesome job navigating with 3 classes of cars and different talent levels of drivers. Had a great time and congratulations to everyone.
 
Pulled through with a second place finish. I think we would have came through with 1st if we didn't have connection issues. Nevertheless, it was a great event, thanks to the stewards. The comms did a great job to keep the fans in the race. I would like to thank Inferno Racing for offering me a seat in the #79 BMW M3. Congrats to the winners and thank you. :cheers:
 
First off big thanks to the all volunteer effort that makes this possible, especially @AJ. The event was very smooth and even with the red flags the frequency of the updates made it feel like we didn't lose much racing. Very happy to be apart of this series and hope our efforts helped the show you are trying to produce.

Normally we always have our eyes set on the podium and it served us well last year leading to a Championship in GT4. This race we were just hoping to qualify and it took 2 almost perfect laps to do so. Knowing how far off the pace we were, and during the race it sounded like 1.5-2.5 seconds a lap depending who was driving, finishing dead last was a realistic possibility.

We got jumped right from the start but slowly I was able to pick off a few places as cars took extra stops and before I got out of the car we even had the lead for 3 or 4 laps!

As the race settled in we preached consistency amongst ourselves and decided to race our own race not worrying about battles on track. Can't say enough about the LMP3 drivers who let us run our race without complication.

Though not official, for us to spend almost half the race 2nd in class and 4th overall is an amazing result for our team and a car that was the slowest in the field by a wide margin. I can't say enough about the job done by @TMR @Jasogreeno and @TizzleP who were almost flawless in the race. After 24 hours we only had 1 unscheduled pit stop.

Doing this as a local team was a blast and we appreciate the opportunity to compete with this awesome field of drivers and teams.
 
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Still "hung-over" from this weekend, but would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude on behalf of Venator, and myself, to AJ, Peelster and the "comms". This series has allowed my boyish fascination with the automobile to still flourish. The race was handled professionally and efficiently, inspite of the of the huge tech problems that occurred.
I'd also like to thank Venator's rookies, maxx and Damon, for the pole, their pace and the their ability to learn quickly. You guys weren't a problem, but a solution. It will be sad when your promotions prohibit you to run as AM team members.
Also like to thank my partner, kross24. Thanks for knowing the rules, protocols and your pace. Well done!
Lastly...the other teams....No where else can you find such a collection of talent, strategies and characters in a game form. Where else can you make this much preparation and competition so frick'n fun, albeit exhausting too. We look forward to the remainder of the season....Should be epic!
 
I'd like to thank all of the GTPSS stewards, @AJ and the commentators for a great show this weekend.

So, my post-race speech.... here goes!

With everything that had happened both on and off the track, it was safe to say that as a team Swift Autosport didn't quite prepare as much as we should have done, and more importantly, thought we had done to put the car on track. There, saying that right now before anyone else has a chance to jump down our throats.

It became apparent quickly that we'd taken on a mammoth task, and with @swiftsmith helping out TOR from a driving POV, I stepped up to be pseudo-TM to allow him more room to help that team. We had a plethora of constraints that effectively neutered any strategy that I wanted to deploy for the team, but the data gathered and end result was definitely a team effort. I was actually a very bad member of the team, playing more Dragon's Dogma than practicing, so I have to give the guys kudos for 90% of the preparation and intel gathering.

Going into this race and looking at the team's work ethic, and the findings they produced, had me thinking that maybe we could sneak in a surprise result. If we could produce what we were doing in our lobby during the race, I had every faith in a good finish! Sadly, race day came and every member of the team felt the punishing aura... pressure got to us, definitely. I don't need to say anything more, neither does anyone else, it speaks for itself. Unless you drove multiple stints without a single error on that track, it's safe to say that nobody has the right to speak ill of anyone else's drivers or team.

Anyways, I have to congratulate everyone in Swift Autosport for toughing it out until the end! I really do! None of you moaned, none of you gave up, you took every error to heart when you really didn't have to, but you decided to suck it up and persevered. Though I never said it, I'll admit that there was one moment in the race where the words "let's just pack it up here" crossed my tongue, I'm sorry for ever thinking it.

To @GTP Ziggy, for pulling off that 3h 59m stint, and to jumping in at a moment's notice when I had my power outage. To @Rob Ledwell, for conditioning himself to do the 4am stint we planned despite having a wife and kids to think about, and for all the information regarding stints and tyre/fuel analysis. To @AhmedAl, for the sheer willingness to get stuck in, working hard and being so proactive about being a part of this team. To @gillesthegt6, for your contributions to tuning, not being upset with the lack of driving time, and purely just having the pleasure to have been in a race with you finally.

Finally, @swiftsmith... Thank you for allowing me to effectively have free rein over the team for this race while your attention was pulled elsewhere, it was made easier by every one of them being so co-operative. I wish I could have done more for them, and I wish the pieces fell in place like I wanted them to... alas, just wasn't to be.
 
Congratulations to everyone who took part in this year's GTPlanet 24 Hours of Daytona. Thank you to the stewards, broadcast crew, and series organizer(s) for your roles in making this race possible. Also a big thank you to team WRS North America for the opportunity to be a part of this again, I am really grateful.

I have a surprise for the winners once official results are released.
 
With the announcement of the (still provisional) official winners of this year's GTPlanet 24 Hours of Daytona I am ecstatic that WRS North America was able to hold their own and take the first victory for the team. I am truly thankful I was able to be a part of the race this year along with my teammates who all missed out last year after a sub-par qualifying weekend. We did it! Redemption in the best way imaginable I can still hardly believe it! We were joking around about winning at all and the 0% chance we had at getting on the overall podium and now I get to eat my hat. Rest assured however, this will be the tastiest hat I've ever eaten. Big shout out to my teammates and team manager for this opportunity. Y'all are old enough to be my dad so I appreciate you guys dealing with a 'kid' on the team, especially a kid who's telling you when to pit, how much gas, and when we're changing driver.

Now for the 'surprise' I had for the winners. These are unofficial, AJ has nothing to do with the distribution of these, I just wanted to whip something up to celebrate our team's victory. I decided to not only make these for WRS, but for all of the winning teams and drivers in this year's event. These should be avatar friendly if you wish to be a showoff. In the event that the classification changes and the winners are different the team involved may have to return these. Or don't. It's a picture not an actual watch. Enjoy!

Daytona Prototype - Team Midweek Motorsport Racers
@Glenalz81 @StigsTC @TNR_5zigen @123yokomo @TeamEdge702 @andrew1990
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GT Le Mans - DZ Motorsport
@Ph1sher @dangerzone641 @sk8er913 @TNR_KING_FILO @Zii1993
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GT Daytona - WRS North America
@Kjeld Lund @Whitetail @OZ @GTP_Patrick1 @Bleached @Gravitron
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