Seventeen hours down

Craig is currently behind the wheel of our car at 8:35am, and we are in tenth spot. After all of our problems early on, our goal was to get the car home and get some good points for the season-long GRAND-AM season, and finishing in the top-10 would do that. There is a long way yet to go but we are making good progress. The #69 Mazda, which was fourth in GT, has just retired and will bump us up to ninth.

There is definitely daylight out but the sun is no where to be seen. Just kind of a gloomy overcast day so far.

Right before daybreak

We've been going back and forth with the Canadians for a couple of hours for the 12th spot, but they have parked it in the garage with some kind of mechanical problem.

John is wrapping up a double stint and Craig is ready to go back. He told us he's determied to get fast time back from Richard.

Our Just-Past-Halfway Report

4:45am means we are 13 hours and 15 minutes into the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Jeroen put in a stellar stint, recording Magnus Racing's quickest lap time of the race, which Richard Lietz then went out and lowered by two tenths of a second. Our target for the last few hours has been the #88 Orbit Racing Porsche, which we have gained back three laps on but need another four.

John has gottenas back into the No.44 Magnus Racing Porsche GT3 Cup, and he should carry us into sunrise. We welcome the sun, it is quite cold in the pits - around 50 degrees F. Our neighbors, the Spirit of Daytona team, have retired their car, which is bad news for them but speaking completely selfishly, will give us a little bit more room for our crew, family, and friends when they all wake up and rejoin us in the morning.

Coming through the field...again

After the trouble with the nose, Craig put in a bunch of fast laps, resetting Magnus Racing's fastest lap of the race on his way to grabbing 13th position. We are almost at 10 1/2 hours through this race.

Jeroen is now in, and we gave up a spot on the exchange but our flying Dutchman will have that taken care of, no problem.

Our bad luck strikes again

Shortly after Craig jumped in the car, he reported a vibration and that the left front fender was coming up a few inches at speed. It took a few pitstops to isolate the problem, but the team finally replaced the nose of the No.44 Magnus Racing Porsche GT3 Cup but it cost us three positions and a couple of laps.

We can sum up the general feeling of the team with %#$&!!!