Action Express Wins Grand Am Rolex 24 in Its Debut Race

Joao Barbosa, along with co-drivers Terry Borcheller, Ryan Dalziel, and Mike Rockenfeller, brought the Action Express Racing Porsche-Riley across the finish line 52 seconds ahead of its nearest competitor, winning the 48th running of the Grand Am Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway.

Action Express Racing made its first public appearance at pre-season testing at Daytona in in December. The team’s first race was the Grand Am Rolex 24, absolutely the biggest race of the Grand Am season. And the Action Racing Porsche-Riley, in its first outing, came home first. There simply could not be a more auspicious beginning.

Grand Am regular Joao Barbosa won the GT class in 2003, but, “This is so much sweeter,” he told a SPEED reporter. “Winning overall is like a great compliment to the whole crew. They did an amazing job, they  never quit. We did not have the best car arriving here, but they turned it around and made it an extremely competitive car—not the fastest, but very consistent. It was flawless. My teammates did an amazing job; the crew did excellent pit stops. Action Express rocks, and it’s going to keep going through the year."

Mike Rockenfeller has won at Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, and now the Rolex 24 Hours. “I have to say I wasn’t too optimistic before the race, but when I saw in the night, what speed we could run … If you look at the car, there are no scratches; we never went off-track. We just did our perfect race. The car stayed in one piece, and the guys did an awesome job. I am really proud to be part of it. Finally I won, together with those guys, and it’s a big pleasure.”

This race was Ryan Dalziel’s first major endurance race victory. “This is huge. To do it with these guys, is huge. Our crew were unbelievable I’ve never seen a crew perform so many pit stops to perfection. And the drivers, we did a great job. An incredible day. Words can’t describe.”

Terry Borcheller, a veteran of many endurance races, said, “What a great team we have. The co-drivers today, Rocky, Ryan, and Joao, did such a great job. It is just a privilege to be here and I am really honored. “

The Action Express team was created after financial considerations forced the Brumos team to cut back its operations. Long-time Brumos associate Bob Johnson decided to pick up the slack, to keep the team members working at a time when jobs, particularly in the racing business, were very scarce.

The team uses a Porsche V8 engine taken from the Porsche Cayenne SUV. It is not a racing engine, and Porsche has no program to develop it for racing. Johnson partnered with Lozano Brothers Tuning to develop the engine independently. He drew on knowledge amassed by the Spirit of Daytona team, which had worked with the engine in 2009. And the Lozano Brothers turned out an engine that ran flawlessly for 24 hours, and set a record for the longest distance covered in the Daytona Prototype era.

The victory was the first overall Rolex 24 win for everyone on the team. Action Express performed to the highest possible level; they lived their wildest Rolex 24 dream.

Second was the Telmex/Target Ganassi BMW Riley, driven by Max Papis, Scott Pruett, Memo Rojas, and Justin Wilson. The team, veterans all, drove an almost flawless race, and were blessed with a car that kept running all day long.

The turning point might well have come at 12:26 p.m. on Sunday, when Justin Wilson ran over some debris coming through the Bus Stop chicane. He radioed in that “It blew up,” and his crew told him to head straight for the garage. By luck he was right by the pit entrance, so he ducked right in.

His crew swarmed all over the car, and found nothing wrong. Had he not been by the pit entrance, he would have had to finish a full lap and might have realized nothing was wrong. Had his crew asked him to come to the pits, not the garage, he would have saved precious seconds, and could have gotten fresh tires and fuel, giving the team an edge in late-race strategy.

The 01 Ganassi car finished less than a minute behind. How much time might the team have saved? On such split-second decisions made after many hours without sleep, do endurance races hang.

SpeedSource Mazda Repeats in GT

The SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 of Jonathan Bomarito, Nick Ham, David Haskell, and Sylvain Tremblay took the GT title in 2010 as it did in 2008. The 2010 win was a textbook endurance race win: don’t be the fastest, don’t race the hardest, just last the longest. The SpeedSource Mazda qualified third behind two other Mazdas: the 69 SpeedSource car took the pole, and the Racers Edge Motorsports Mazda started second. But twenty-five laps after the race started, the Porsches took over. Then the Stevenson Camaros took off after the Porsches.

By 10:30 Sunday morning, the Porsches and the Camaros were battered, beaten, and behind the 70 SpeedSource Mazda. And the SpeedSource team kept ahead, while the competition, broke, crashed, burned … failed.

The SpeedSource team chose Jonathan Bomarito to drive the all-important final stint. “It is just an honor to be able to drive it across and see the checkered flag,” he said. “The amount of work that goes into this, I just can’t even fathom. I’m just honored to be here. We worked for it every second. We were six laps down.“

Team owner and lead driver Sylvain Tremblay said, “To be back here with the amount of work that we did, the dedication we have from our partners …  Everything that we do—the 100 hour weeks, the craziness …  just to get and to do this, to have the opportunity to do it, and to win—that’s why we do it.”

Second in class came the 67 TRG/Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche GT3. With its veteran driving team of Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Long, Seth Neiman, and Johannes van Overbeek, this was a formidable entry. TRG and Flying Lizard have succeeded in Grand Am, ALMS, and at Le Mans. This was a team which knew how to win.

The TRG/Lizard car came in four laps behind the SpeedSource Mazda—a respectable achievement after 24 hours of flat-out driving. The difference might have been no more than racing luck. But luck is an essential ingredient in endurance racing.

The Grand Am season continues with the Grand Prix of Miami, on the Homestead Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida on March 6, 2010.

Tickets for the race weekend are available online.