msrpk.com blog

"History and Sour Grapes"

From Left to Right, the overall winners of the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway:

Darren Law, 2004 Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice, David Donohue and Antonio Garcia.

• Rice joins a club of Daytona 24 Hour Sportscar winners and Indianapolis 500 winners. Donohue beat another member of that club, Juan Pablo Montoya, by .167 seconds (50 feet) to win the Rolex 24...40 years after his father Mark won here.

• The sour grapes come from the comments about the apparent power of the racing Porsche from the runners up (Montoya, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas, the latter two defending Grand-AM Rolex Series Daytona Prototype Champions).

• Donohue credited the testing done by Darren Law for a lot of the win...along with exceptional pit and preparation work by the Brumos Porsche crew. The second Brumos Porsche car finished third, with Joao Barbosa, JC France, Terry Borcheller and Hurley Haywood behind the wheel. How much did Donohue appreciate that work? He made a respectful reference to his father's accomplishment, but said he connected a lot more with the Brumos crew and their hard work. And with Roger Penske's 6th place with his new Porsche Riley team...well, the next race at Virginia International Raceway in April (yes that's right) will be interesting.

• As for the crowd: I sensed that it was not as large as last year; by what percentage, I could not tell. Given the circumstances, it was a good crowd--a baseline from which to improve for 2010. I found it easier to move around the infield, and the number of cars parked in the infield looked smaller. That will likely not be the case in three weeks (February 15--Daytona 500).

We'll join you from Sebring on Tuesday, with a look at the new Acura LeMans Prototype 1 chassis, and perhaps comments from the American LeMans Series about NASCAR Chairman Brian France's comments on the green programs of other racing series, made last Thursday at the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, NC.