Photos: Patrick Tremblay / Historic Sportscar Racing – Contact Patrick for hi-res copies of the images
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (November 13, 2016)
In Sunday morning’s B.R.M. Vintage and Classic Enduro, Toni Seiler went two-for-two feature race wins at the HSR Daytona Historics in his 1969 No. 77 Lola T70. Seiler scored overall and Classic division honors on Sunday in an exact repeat performance of his victory in Saturday’s Vintage and Classic night race.
We followed British driver Robert Rawe who took his Aston Martin DP214 an exact replica of chassis 0195 which raced at Daytona in 1964 by Brian Hetreed. Robert’s first impressions of Daytona; “The vast 150,000 capacity stands cleverly coloured seats make them always look full of people – brilliant. The circuit is dangerous, come off the banking and cross the yellow line onto the apron, changing course suddenly or trying to turn into turn one anything other than single file – all have dire consequences!”
“The key apparently, was to stay low on the banking, faster cars go high and a local friendly mechanic advised approaching the banking as one long corner nearly 2 miles. Once we had driven it, it soon became apparent it can be driven flat out, the knock on effect is tyres can overheat and delaminate as the down forces on the body work can cause rubbing, so our mechanic was closely inspecting for any signs of wear, as for wire wheels, well we got a few strange looks for using these. The organisers are keen to ensure you get loads of track time and for $950 track time we got about 4 hours of track time.”
“Power is everything at Daytona, I had to limit my revs to ensure the car lasted the weekend, best lap time was a 2.16 and I finished 16th and 20th over the weekend, bizarrely similar to Hetreed’s 5th and 17th in 1964. Daytona is a great experience, everyone must try it!”
Other Classic results:
The Vintage class B.R.M. Enduro win went to accomplished race car driver and legendary rock-and-roller Brian Johnson for the second-straight race weekend. Johnson’s victory Sunday in his 1970 No. 21 Royale RP4 prepared by Heritage Motorsports followed a B.R.M. Enduro win at the Savannah Speed Classic two weeks ago.
In Sunday afternoon’s B.R.M. Historic Prototype and GT Modern Enduro, the same 2009 No. 52 Oreca FLM09 that Juan Gonzalez drove to the win in a Saturday night race was victorious again. On Sunday, however, Gonzalez handed the No. 52 off to his coach and well-known professional co-driver Butch Leitzinger.
Leitzinger took the overall and Historic Prototype win and was joined on the class podium by runner-up John Reisman in his 2010 No. 33 Corvette Daytona Prototype. Third-place went to co-drivers Keith Frieser and Ross Thompson in a 2009 No. 11 Oreca FLM09.
Juan Lopez-Santini rebounded from a Sunday morning transmission repair to score the B.R.M. GT Modern class win in his 2008 No. 810 Porsche 997 GT3 Cup prepared by the 901 Shop. He also went two-for-two in HSR Daytona Historics feature race victories after winning the GT Modern night race on Saturday.
Seiler shared the overall and B.R.M. Classic podium with Brits and second-place finishers Andrew Beaumont and Nigel Greensall, who co-drove a 1966 No. 96 McLaren M1B. Banz finished third in his No. 13 Porsche.
Joining Johnson on the B.R.M. Vintage podium was the second-place 1975 No. 85 B-G Racing Ford Escort of Sean Brown and third-place finisher Tom Briest in his Zotz Racing 1970 No. 71 Porsche 914/6 GT.
For a full list of runner and results and more details of racing with HSR : click here
