The Rolex 24 at Daytona was certainly an adventure for our No. 70 Mazda RT-24P. Right from the beginning, we had an interesting race: on the second lap, a piece of plastic flew into the intake on the roof of the car and we had to do a short pit stop to get the debris out. That put us down a lap right away.
Through strategy and a late pit stop, we got that lap back and re-entered the track right in front of the field on a restart. I had an encounter with one of my childhood heroes, Jeff Gordon. He locked up the tires on the restart because he was on cold tires, like we were, and hit the back of our car. Unfortunately, that damaged the tail and we lost some time fixing it.
The new tail section the crew installed had just been finished being built the day before, which shows you how hard the Mazda Motorsports crew was working right up until the green flag. That work paid off because we were able to keep going.
We started chugging through the rain, and overnight we encountered a gearbox problem. The team was persistent all night. They changed the gearbox, which relegated the car to the garage for several hours, but we got back up and running.
Once we were back out, we had some of the most treacherous conditions I’ve ever experienced at Daytona: cold, wet and dark, plus tons of standing water on the track. You had to stay on your toes every single moment. All of the drivers managed to keep the car safe through all of that and as the track started to dry out, we picked the pace back up.
It was disappointing to see our sister car, who was running so strong in fifth, have to retire with only four hours left. We wanted to take the reins and finish the race for the team. I was fortunate to be the closing driver. I came in for a splash of fuel with less than 30 minutes to go, but unfortunately on the launch from pit lane we encountered another gearbox problem that kept us from being able to cross the finish line.
At the end, the track was the best it had been all weekend and our Mazda was handling at its best. We were running the fastest pace we’d ever run, and that was all thanks to the team’s efforts and Mazda’s “Never Stop Challenging” spirit.
For me, it was rewarding to be able to put all of those laps in to show the potential of the RT-24P. Certainly there were a lot of positive takeaways from the race. Between the two cars, we ran 1,000 laps, so we certainly learned a lot and we’ll take that onward into Sebring. We look forward to being not only on the new spec Continental tire but also on a higher downforce package, which will suit our Mazda RT-24Ps.