IMSA – TUDOR UNITED SPORTSCAR CHAMPIONSHIP
ROLEX 24 AT DAYTONA
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JANUARY 24, 2015
RICKY TAYLOR, NO. 10 WAYNE TAYLOR RACING CORVETTE DP
TAKE US THROUGH THE EARLY STAGES, HOW DID IT GO?
“We’ve been having incredible electrical issues this weekend, We’ve been without traction control all week as well as wheel speed sensor and other issues. The team has been absolutely thrashing, and last night we thought we had a solution for it. Then we didn’t know until the start of the race that we were about 50/50 as to whether it was going to work or not. I went out for the start, and something felt funny with the throttle pedal. TC (traction control) wasn’t working again, and then we had an additional problem, the engine was cutting out up to a half a second or a second at a time. I was just thinking here we go for the 24 Hour and here we have all of these problems. We just kind of ran around until the fuel window opened and then we pitted. We shut the car off, plugged in the updates from the engine guys and went back out and everything was perfect. So, I’m very happy. Now we have a car we can go race with. We restarted with a bunch of GT cars between us and the leader, We picked our way through some of the prototype field. Felt like we were a lot stronger than the No. 01 other than in the straight. I felt like the Fords were pretty strong. I think we have a really good Corvette to race with now. “
ARE YOU SAYING THEY PLUGGED IN A FLASH DRIVE AND THAT FIXED YOUR ELECTRICAL PROBLEM?
“Yes, the just plug into the ECU and send a new map, I’m not sure exactly what they did, whether it was with the Bosch wheel speed sensor or something in that system. But they can upload some new maps. I don’t know exactly what the fix was. But they plug in, we had to shut the car down, reset the ECU. And they gave me a little touch of ECR magic.”
SO THE PROBLEM WAS NOT RESOLVED WITH THE FIX FROM LAST NIGHT?
“The team described it to me as a Band-Aid, not a permanent fix. They are 90 percent sure that it will last the 24 Hours but when we go back to Indianapolis, we are going to find a more permanent solution.”
OLIVER GAVIN, NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R
YOUR FIRST DOUBLE-STINT LOOKED EVENTFUL. HOW WAS IT?
“The car was pretty good. The circuit to begin with was treacherous. We all thought it would be green but maybe not as green as it was. The Bus Stop was trouble. The first couple of laps, I don’t know how I kept it out of the wall. It was fun racing with Gimmi Bruni, Jan (Magnussen), the Aston Martin, the Porsche… we were really mixing it up. Things started to settle down a little more. Then I was able to get by the 51, and Jan and I got pretty close at one point. On the first restart, I was able to get away. Another caution happened. Through all of that, you had to be careful with traffic and where you place the car. The track is very narrow at some points. On that second restart, our front-right tire pressure never came up, I started to struggle and let Jan go by. About three laps later at the Horseshoe, a PC car went off and rejoined randomly back on at the Kink. He went to the inside and I went to go around the outside, then he hit me and spun me around. We lost about 15 seconds so that was a shame. It dropped us down in the order but there’s a long way to go. We have to keep things clean, be smart and try to avoid those type of guys.”
JOAO BARBOSA, NO. 5 ACTION EXPRESS RACING CORVETTE DP
HOW ARE THINGS GOING IN YOUR QUEST FOR A REPEAT?
“It’s looking pretty good so far. I’m happy with the Corvette DP. It’s very competitive out there, but we have to keep our car in one piece. Tomorrow in the afternoon is when the speed comes. We may not have the outright speed at the moment but tomorrow is another day.
MOST DRIVERS COME IN HERE AND TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH DICING IS GOING ON, HOW COMPETITIVE IT IS AT THE START AND ACT LIKE IT GETS A LITTLE CRAZIER EVERY YEAR. DID IT SEEM LIKE THAT TO YOU?
“It’s as crazy as normal. It is very tight. Everyone is so competitive that they don’t want to lose any real estate to the other guys. So it’s very close. I tried to follow the lead group as close as possible. At times you might see a little more optimistic moves.”