2nd Annual GTPlanet 24 Hours of Daytona

GTLM as a whole was a mess, every car had multiple catastrophic moments, it might say it is a win, but it doesn't feel like a win.

 

@Whitetail i love it man!!!
I'll wear it everywhere I go!!

 

@Whitetail ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!

 

@Whitetail
These watches are super cool, thanks heaps!

 

Sweet watches @Whitetail. Definitely going to make it my new profile picture.

 

Damn shame for INF... In my eyes it was the best squad of drivers and they really did well. I'm interested to know how we managed to lose 15 laps at one point but oh well. Absolutely fantastic job by @rcb929 @RacingLine @DannyB013 and @jakeking behind the wheel. If we'd had one less disconnection who knows what might have happened.

Anyways, congrats to DZ of the win in GTLM and well done to MWM and WRS NA in both DP and GTD.

 

15 laps just sounds rather unlucky

 

Future in regards to "losing 15 laps", you never actually lost laps, all that happened was Danny DC'd and messed up the hourly updates.
You got the laps back in lap compensation, Danny picked up 36, 2 and 34 minutes of compensation (Hours 13-14, 19-20, 20-21). The Hourly updates always rectified lost laps AFTER stint photos were submitted, evidenced by your 56 laps completed between Hours 17 and 18 according to the updates, due to obtaining 21 laps of compensation in that update.

 

Excellent job on the watches Whitetail!

Another big thank you to our competitors, AJ, the stewards and everyone involved in running the event. A mote detailed post will follow in time.

 

Loves the way @Whitetail has turned the list of people I follow into a line of watches #rolexjealousy

 

Ahem...I am the legal representative of Rolex SA. We would like to have a word with Mr. Whitetail ( aka Bambi aka Road Kill) concerning the unapproved presenting of OUR watches. He is to present himself and his attorney at 0900 hours Zulu at our Geneva office tomorrow. We are confident that this matter can be resolved in an amicable, but expensive, manner.

Yours truely,
M.Ambulance Chasseur.


All kidding aside Bambi....really cool....and thoughtfull.

 

@Nail-27... Chasseur? As in casserole? Oh no...

@Whitetail! His plan is to bleed you dry and eat you! Run!

 

A recap by stint of I wrote on our team thread for the race that I wrote after no sleep and a few (maybe more ) beers. I have always found it interesting as to what other teams teams do strategy wise.

Team Manager Lucas @Gravitron Bambi @Whitetail Joe @GTP_OZ Kjeld (Depr on track) @Kjeld Lund Drew @Bleached (vipond on track)

Thanks to AJ, stewards and Comms for a great event.

1. Worried about quali, we find the perfect tune the night before and knock off .4 from what we were doing. Joe and I finish 1st and 5 th overall, giving us 2nd on the grid. We went to no aero, and very low ride height to take advantage of the long straights at Daytona. It helped with overall speed around the track.
2. Lucas finds out at the last minute he can't go, so we need an experienced driver who knows the rules and Kjeld steps up to help. The change gives us 3 warnings before the race, but we manage to only get one more for the whole race.
3. Setting the lineup - We go with Joe to lead us off for 3 hours. Joe knocks off a perfectly clean stint, not the fastest on track but not one mistake, we are in first in class at the end of his stint. Joe is just really good at knocking out the laps without an error.
4. Bambi goes next and finds about .8 better than anything he did in practice. He was the fastest GTD car during his stint. Bambi saves his best for the race, he always goes faster in the race than in practice. Red flag and he only gets 2 of the 3 hours scheduled.
5. Me I decide after watching car after car spin in turn one and the bus stop that I won't do that. I never challenged into turn 1 or the bus stop as it was mayhem for many that tried. I run about 95 % of what I can do, and it pays off, one small spin that cost me about 5 seconds in over 3 hours of driving, and second fastest in class.
6. Kjeld jumps in and after a few fast trouble free stints, has bad luck getting bad damage, he fixes it, then more damage and he runs with damage for about an hour, running within .3 of his normal. Epic run Kjeld to go that long with damage.
7. Bambi again, and he is blazing in the middle of the night, but same thing red flag cuts his stint short. He did get to do Comms, so I guess that makes up for his reduced driving time .
8. Me again and another 3 hour stint, without incident.
9. Joe runs a solid 50 lap stint to set up Drew for the last run.
10. We were not sure Drew could even be available for the last leg until early in the morning. So glad Drew an original WRS team member got to participate in this race. Drew is involved with the most entertaining racing of the day from my point of view. Drew, Xchris, danger, and kross slice and dice for many laps. All we needed was for Drew not to wreck but I guess Drew liked the challenge.
11.And last but not least so glad that Lucas' team for the last 2 years got a win. I so wished he was able to race with us. Between moderating on GTP, doing much heavy lifting for the WRS TTs and Races, and participating in this series, not sure how he does them all.

The race was just about perfect for our team, with only one unplanned pit stop and no DCs. I guess the GT6 Gods were with us. This was an extremely satisfying win. Last year we gave it our best in GT3 and P1, racing against the best drivers in all of GT6. We were consistent, but without any true aliens (Bambi is trying his best to get there though), we really never had a chance. We managed a few podiums with a bit of luck on our side and bad luck to other teams. It is an interesting mix of people on our team Kjeld and I in our 50s, me pushing 56, and a few others in their 40s , Drew in his 20s, and Bambi the youngster of the team. As I said in the youtube chat, many of my competitors are younger than my 2 daughters . Congrats to all the other teams and looking forward to the next race.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the team WRS North America for the chance to run for them. it was an amazing experience to contributed to the first victory in 2016. I'm really impressed with the efforts of all driver on the team have put into this race.

I never got a confidential relationship with the track layout and drove therefore very carefully. I was unfortunate to be hit from behind and pushed to the wall of the bus stop, with great damage. got the car in the pit and then drove 20 laps and got an damage right after my pitstop. so I drove for nearly an hour with an damaged front, which was quite an experience.

A big thanks to @GTP_Gravitron @GTP_Bambi @GTP_Patrick @GTP_Oz and @GTP_Vipond for this opportunity

 

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.

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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 .