The general consensus among racing fans is that Seth Neiman has built the Flying Lizard team to do one thing, and do it well. Win. The Lizards have a legendary reputation for their ever present fastidiousness, focused personnel, and determined preparation. In the lead up to the Daytona 24 hour they acted no differently, and even as a one-off, rookie effort, they proved to be the class of the field.
The cars are always turned out professionally and to the absolute extent of the rules, leaving nothing on the table. In an era of motor racing predominately decided by performance balancing, restrictor sizes, and weight minimums, those behind the team persevere and overcome, winning regardless of the circumstances. The drivers stand as a multinational who’s who of endurance sports car racing, staffed with Porsche senior team factory drivers. Bergmeister, Long, Van Overbeek and Neiman are absolutely unparalleled in their collection of victories, the Lizard drivers aim for nothing less than the top step of the podium. The remainder of the team is just as important, and they share a similar mantra. They say endurance races are won and lost in the pits, and that adage is held dear by the red & silver team. Always ready, ever vigilant, the team waits for misfortune to strike.
The Rolex 24 at Daytona stands as one of international sports car racing’s great events. Counted by drivers and teams alike, The Rolex stands among similarly epic events; the 24 hours of Le Mans, the 12 hours of Sebring, and Road Atlanta’s Petit Le Mans, as one of the top events to win. This year’s event was no different, drawing talent from NASCAR, Formula 1, IndyCar to compete for the trophy and a Rolex Daytona wristwatch.
This year, at the 49th running of the 24 hour, Flying Lizard came prepared for a fight. Defending champions, Action Express Racing, and perennial favorites, Ganassi Racing, each brought two cars, while the Sonoma, California based team concentrated their efforts into a single car. While Action Express fielded their cars with Riley Chassis Technologies bases, the same chassis used by Flying Lizard, their Porsche power plant was different than the one in the Lizard car. Since their debut last year, Action Express has chosen to use a Porsche 5.0 liter V8 prepared by the Lozano brothers in Texas, as opposed to the Porsche factory prepared 4 liter flat six RSR engine. By using the smaller standard Porsche engine, Flying Lizard was allowed to use an additional forward gear, totaling 6 gears, and they were given a fifty pound weight advantage. Also, the flat six awarded them factory support, and afforded them a bit of familiarity in a new venue, as the 4 liter engine is nearly identical to the one located at the back of their ALMS GT2 class 911 GT3 RSR.
In the pre-season test, dubbed the Roar Before the 24, their hand may not have been displayed for all to see. Preferring to hold their cards close to their chest, Flying Lizard posted times consistently in the top ten. All of the team drivers expressed optimism for the race, excitement at the possibilities, and most of all, improvement in the car during each of the sessions. Joerg Bergmeister said “We had a good three days, and saw the car get better and better in each session.”, while Pat Long commented that he was “pleased with the progress that we made over the weekend”.
On the Thursday before the race, Joerg delicately placed the Porsche powered Riley at the top of the time sheets. With a flying lap that eclipsed the previously held Daytona Prototype lap record at the track, Joerg commented that he didn’t take a single breath for the full one minute and 40 second lap. While a pole position is not a race win, especially with 24 hours remaining to race, it certainly lifted spirits, and told the team that they were on a path toward success.
On race day, it looked like the Lizards had gotten their setup perfect yet again. At three-thirty in the afternoon on Saturday, the green flag fell on the start of the 24 hour enduro. Shortly thereafter, Bergmeister led the field, followed by 17 other Daytona Prototypes, and driving away as though he were still qualifying. Stretching out an enormous gap over his first stint, everything went according to plan. The next nearest competitor was at a deficit of over a minute by the time Joerg pulled into the pits for the first time.
Quickly jumping from the car, Bergmeister handed over the leading car to his familiar teammate Patrick Long. The German and Californian have been sharing cars, and championships, for several years, and their driver changes have become almost an act of art, even though Bergmeister stands a full head above Long. After the cycle of pit stops was completed, Long found himself with a healthy lead over the field yet again, and continued to stretch it. During the first caution of the race, Long brought the car to pit lane for a top up on fuel. Even though this move dropped them to the middle of the pack, being out of sync with other teams on pit cycles provides many benefits, and the team wanted to take full advantage. By the time Long returned to the pits at the end of his extended stint, he had climbed his way back to second place overall.
Another caution at the start of the second hour, brought an end to Long’s time in the car, as he handed the car to team Principal Seth Neiman. Starting his stint under caution, Neiman was down a few cars from the lead. As the green flag flew again, restarting the race, Seth was bunched up slightly in traffic as the leader dropped back from the pace car. The mistiming of the start caused a chain reaction, and caught unawares, Scott Tucker in the Level 5 Motorsport BMW Riley drove the front left corner into and through the right rear bodywork of the Lizard car. Another pit stop was necessary to replace the right rear tire, and mend some of the damaged bodywork.
Later in his stint, Seth ran into further problems. Coming off of the banking, and through turn one, everything was looking great. As Neiman rounded turn two and headed toward the international horseshoe, there was a haze hanging low in the air, and the silhouette of a car moving perpendicularly across the track surface. A second car had already taken avoidance maneuvers across the grass, kicking up dirt in the process. The first car, the No. 81 GT class Ferrari fielded by DragonSpeed Motorsports had come off of the banking, taken just a bit too much of the curbing at the exit of turn two, and spun into the path of oncoming cars, before rolling backward off the track. The second car is identified as the No. 66 TRG Porsche, which, in avoidance took to the grass, and consequently suffered a puncture. Neiman also chose to go off the track to his right, as the Ferrari was rolling to his left. He made it safely past the DragonSpeed car, but then disaster struck.
As Seth navigated the car back toward the ribbon of black pavement, he struck a short mound of dirt, head on with the front of the car. The carbon composite splitter fitted to the front of the Riley chassis dug into the dirt as though it were mining gold. Once back on the track, Seth found himself at a loss for downforce and grip as the splitter and the front undertray had separated from the chassis and the assembly was dragging on the ground. Continuing onward at a much reduced pace for the remainder of the lap, Neiman negotiated the car back to the garage for immediate repair.
Using the foresight of an experienced team, crew members swarmed both ends of the car, with one group repairing the damage, while a second group replaced the rear brake pads, which would likely need to be replaced later in the race anyway, saving them valuable time in the pits. The chassis is designed in a way that the entire front section of the car, including all of the areas which had received damage in the incident, should be able to be replaced in around ten minutes. Unfortunately for the team, one of the fasteners for the front splitter had also been damaged in the incident, and more extensive repairs to the chassis were required to properly repair the car for safe competition, and to prevent future failures over the remaining 21 hours. During the 35 minutes the team needed to effect repairs, the No. 45 Porsche fell 19 laps behind the leader.
The team then set off in an attempt at regaining the time that they had lost in the garage. With 20 hours left in the race, it was not impossible, though without a large handful of luck, seemed improbable. Van Overbeek headed out first after the repairs, and by the end of his stint, had gotten the team up to 16th position. Bergmeister took the wheel for the second time just as the 4th hour came to a close, and managed to gain another position.
Four hours passed, uneventfully, with three laps gained back on the leaders. The down but not out attitude of the lizards, and never say die mentality was working, as they proved to be the quickest of the field, consistently lapping in the low 1 minute 40s, while most teams circulated the track in about 1 minute and 43 seconds. The red and silver 45 managed to grab the fastest lap of the race with a 1 minute 40.417 second pace. Joerg Bergmeister set the blisteringly quick time during one of his stints, and in race trim, was only three tenths of a second slower than his pole position winning lap, proving that the team had the package to beat. The car was then classified in the 13th position only 16 laps behind first position.
By the halfway point of the race, they had gained another position back, now identified on the time sheets as 12th. Bergmeister provided a double stint, affording the team a quick pitstop that was desperately needed. Long then got back in for the third time, and again, the team continued chipping away at the deficit.
As the sun rose over the Daytona International Speedway, the sky remained relatively darkened by a low hanging fog as thick as cake icing. The fog had been recognized as a danger to the competitors, and the safety car had been released just before sun up. The drivers, and fans alike, will attest to the threat that was posed by the fogged air. Distance of view could be measured in feet rather than miles, and some said, at speed it was difficult to see beyond the hood of your own car. What most thought would be a quick caution period turned into a lengthy affair, with the green flag not shown again until eight o’clock in the morning, ending 2 hours and 49 minutes of yellow flags being shown.
Twenty two hours twenty four minutes and fifty four seconds into the race, the team would get a definitive answer as to where they would finish. While negotiating the international horseshoe, and headed toward the kink, Bergmeister felt a sudden loss of power to the wheels, and with a flash, flames appeared from just behind the right rear wheel. Bergmeister, thanks to his quick thinking and professional action, pulled the car off the track just in front of a fire marshal station, and extricated himself from the vehicle before any harm could be done, being sure to park the car on paved surface as opposed to the dry and flammable grass.
The premature end to the race seemed to stem from the damage dealt by the initial contact from behind at the earlier restart. An oil line rupture was reported to be the cause of the fire, while the loss of forward motion has not been attributed to any one component failure, though it seems it must be related.
Pole position and fastest lap of the race are attributed to the team, and without the early trip to the garage, they certainly would have been running away with the win. It is a godsend, then, that the failure and fire occurred when the team was 12 laps down, as opposed to being 12 seconds up on second place. No time is a failure more painful than when you know unequivocally that you could have won the race otherwise. When probed, a member of the team stated that this was his mindset, and he was attempting to convey this to the rest of the group. Bad luck early helped to ease them into the retirement from the race.
The fire in the car is only matched by the fire that has been lit inside the team. What was begun as a one off event with the only logical outcome being victory, has now turned into a burning desire to come back with an even greater desire to win, and an even higher level of preparation. Though they may have fallen flat in 2011, the Lizards will be determined to fly in 2012. Flying Lizard has unfinished business at the storied high banks of Daytona.
