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Grand Am
DALZIEL: I’ve Been A Busy Boy!
By no means am I complaining, but it feels really good to have a week off!
Ryan Dalziel  |  Posted June 30, 2010  
Dalziel and teammate Mike Forest featured at Mid-Ohio until a driveline problem intervened. (Marshall Pruett)
By no means am I complaining, but it feels really good to have a week off. Since Laguna Seca, round 3 of the American Lemans series back in May 22nd, this is my first weekend off. I went from Laguna Seca in the Jaguar RSR to back to back GRAND-AM races (Lime Rock Park and Watkins Glen) for Starworks Motorsport. Then I jumped on a plane hours after the Watkins race to head to my first Le Mans 24hour experience, and what an experience it was! We’ll get into that later.

I got back from Le Mans on Monday, June 14th, only to leave for Mid Ohio, for another GRAND-AM race. After that run of races I was ready to get home, see my wife (who wasn’t all that happy during the months of May into June…) and my friends and kick back with some good old home time. Oh yeah…did I mention I moved homes in-between this whole thing?. I really have enjoyed this season though. Not more than 6 months ago I was wondering ‘where’ or even ‘if’ I’d have a job this season. “Good things happen to good people” is a little motto I say. I have always prided myself in working hard and being a good person. So far so good in that department.

So I am not going to go into great details cause nobody wants to read about five races straight and according to good ole Marshal Pruett, I have some angry readers of my columns since I have been a little behind, so to everyone who has been waiting for this edition I apologize for the delay and hopefully you enjoy this read.

Let’s start with the Jaguar RSR GT2. We went into Laguna Seca after a strong two day test at Road Atlanta the week prior. The car ran flawlessly and covered many miles. Our whole goal of the test was reliability and we left there heading to Laguna confident that we had achieved that. We know the pace will come but you have to first finish to finish first, as the adage goes.
Ryan's 'Shaguar' went quickly in short spurts, but sputtered to a halt early in the Scot's maiden race at La Sarthe. (Marshall Pruett)

Laguna went well and we had good race pace. Seems the Michelin tire users have some much more aggressive qualifying tires than we do so we really only look at race pace and we weren’t too far off. To be honest the car ran flawlessly until the second pit stop where we couldn’t refire the car after the ALMS mandatory turning off of the engine during pit stops goes on. Turned out we snapped the alternator belt and lost some time at each stop after that as we had to refire using jumper batteries. The important thing we took away from the event was the car ran well mechanically and give us a huge confidence boost going into Le Mans after finishing the 6 hours of Laguna Seca.
Le Mans was next in the Jag. I flew with my Starworks and Jaguar RSR engineer Bill Riley from Elmira, NY, to Paris for Monday afternoon’s tech session in the town square. I had been told many times over the years about certain points of the Le Mans event being outright amazing, with tech being one of them. It was amazing to see how many people turn out to see the cars and teams go through tech. But without doubt the biggest shock for me came on the Friday driver’s parade. Now that was unbelievable, or MEGA as I’d say in Scotland.

70,000+ fans and with the return of Jaguar to Le Mans it was crazy hearing people chant “Jaguar, Jaguar, Jaguar”. I was always told, they don’t care who you are, but if you’re wearing a race suit you’re treated like a superstar. That’s exactly how it felt. Unfortunately our race was short lived as the Big Cat had an electrical issue early in the race. We were extremely disappointed as we were plagued with some electrical bugs from the minute we fired the car that week. We really felt like we let a lot of people down who were looking for the Jags return to be more productive. I would like to thank everyone from Jaguar cars for their unbelievable support during the race weekend. There were many Jaguar guests at the event and although we didn’t give them much to cheer about they made me feel like we did our best. “We will get them next year, guys.”

GRAND-AM has been going really well on a whole this season. We went into Lime Rock with a great car and took a very strong second place finish away from that one. It was a very important result for us as the championship leaders Ganassi had a crash on the first lap.

We went into Watkins Glen with huge motivation and only a couple of points behind Pruett/Rojas for the championship lead. Unfortunately Watkins Glen was a disaster for us. Despite having one of the fastest cars consistently during practice we got into the race and instantly we felt something wrong. We actually broke an engine mount and in turn it pushed the floor down on one side of the car and started to rub. We were rubbing so hard by the end of the race we actually wore a hole all the way through the floor and into the fuel cell. The car was literally seconds away from a major fire when we parked it after the checkered flag. We got away lucky on this one. One fire like that and we would more than likely come up short for finishing the season.

We put Watkins behind us and rolled the #8 Corsa Car Care entry out at Mid Ohio last weekend. I said this all last week at the race and I’m going to say it again. Starworks and Bill Riley gave me the best car I have ever driven in Daytona Prototypes. The car was so bloody fast we almost felt like we were too good at times. After every session I would tell Bill “I don’t know what to tell you Bill, clean her and leave her, she’s perfect.” Mike Forest ran a great stint and pitted us under yellow, and in the lead at the perfect time. At that point we were one of only three or so cars that could finish the race on one more stop. Everything was going great, or so we thought. Coming out of the famous key hole at Mid Ohio I lost all drive, and that was race over with a broken axle. I was devastated but not even angry. We are on such a tight budget that we don’t have the luxuries of new parts as often as needed, so we have to take some gambles on certain things. Unfortunately for us the axles were due for replacement after Mid Ohio, but just wasn’t our day. That’s racing.
Mid-Ohio didn't end the way the Starworks team wanted, and will look for greater reliability this weekend at Daytona. (Marshall Pruett)

The team wanted us to go back out and complete three or four laps just to be safe with getting my mandatory 30 minutes for points, and I wanted to go back out to prove my point. My point was simple that the #8 car should have been the car to beat that race. I got back in the car with approx. 1 hour to go and stayed out of everyone way to get my own agenda completed. I think I had fastest lap by 0.4s over second fastest Pruett. Not only once though. We had four laps all faster than the next fastest car. Team told me to pit early and we were done. Despite the crappy result for the points ‘we’ as a team were actually really happy. We all high fived like we had just won the race. And although we know we didn’t , we took a great deal of satisfaction away from Mid Ohio.

On to Daytona next and I don’t think I need to tell you how excited I am about returning to Daytona where last time out I won the 24 Hours in January. There is something magical about Daytona for me. It’s that one place where I just freaking love everything about it. I love being there, driving there. And returning on the 100th Daytona Prototype race I feel good things in the air for the #8 Starworks entry. I look forward to writing after that one!

~Ryan

Ryan Dalziel is a sportscar and open-wheel veteran, having raced in GRAND-AM, ChampCar, the ALMS and the Atlantic Championship.

Prior to his win at the 2010 Rolex 24, Dalziel’s most notable victory came at the 2008 Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca GRAND-AM round behind the wheel of the SAMAX Riley-BMW. The native of Glasgow, Scotland, will drive for Action Express Racing and Starworks Motorsports in 2010, and lives in Orlando, Florida, with his wife.

Learn more about Ryan at http://www.ryandalziel.com, and about his efforts to aid the Haitian Earthquake Relief at http://www.race4haiti.com.

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