Not to get ahead of myself, but I finally took the checkered flag at Daytona! The goals for this weekend were pretty simple: to drive the BMW Z3 Coupe, learn it, and determine if it was worth buying. I also wanted to go through the Grand Am processes so that later in the year I'll be able to enter the car under my own team. And most importantly, I wanted to finish the race.

Finishing was paramount after my 2003 experience, when the Audi S4 I was to drive expired 2/3rds of a lap in with a blown turbo. This, coupled with a few other "arrive-and-drive" experiences led me to the decision to purchase my own car and run my own team. The BMW Z3 Coupe (a car we didn't get in Canada, which looks like an M Coupe but fitted with a 2.8L engine) seemed like a good, sorted platform to start with, and I worked out a deal with the car's current owner to run a few races with his team. By mid-season I'll take the car, hopefully having learned enough to field a competitive team. We certainly learned a lot at Daytona!

With friends Ian McQuillan and Robert Lavigne along for the trip, I arrived early Wednesday morning (4am!) at Pearson Airport. By noon we were in Daytona picking up our credentials and soon had met up with car owner Matt Connolly and his crew. They'd already got the cars out of the trailer and were starting to prep them. At first blush, the silver and red Z3 looked a little more tired than it did in some of the photos, but it ran well and looked ready to race. During the drive to tech I noticed that the steering lock was sticking, and Ian spent much of the afternoon working on solving that.

After a quick Waffle House breakfast on Thursday morning, we were at the track and getting the steering lock resolved. While Ian was busy under the dash, Robert and I did a track walk of the infield with Matt. The track surface is very granular and well-worn. Up close you'd think it would provide a lot of grip, but the opposite is true, because the spec Hoosiers never get to build up a really good contact patch. This means you're always modulating the throttle and brakes to maximize grip. The banking, on the other hand, is foot-to-the-floor.

Co-driver Neal Heffron and his wife Susan came just in time for our first practice session. Unlike me, Neal has a fair bit of experience in Grand Am Cup, and actually ran a Z3 with Matt for a season in 2002. He's also driven his car in the Ferrari Challenge, and has been at Daytona a bunch of times. So, I was hoping to learn from him.

Neal went out first, the idea being to split our two practice sessions evenly. There's not a lot of track time before the race, with our sessions being limited to 30 minutes Thursday morning and 40 minutes in the early afternoon. Later in the afternoon we get 15 minutes of qualifying. Then nothing until the race itself Friday afternoon. This is because there's so much going on at Daytona. At other venues we will get a lot more track time (especially at Homestead in March where we are the feature race), but at Daytona the real show is the 24 Hour Rolex race, with a bunch of historic HSR races thrown in for good measure.

During the first few laps, something happened. For some reason, the radiator dropped out of its housing -- either it wasn't secured during a new fan installation before the run, or Neil ran over some debris on track. Regardless, when Neil pulled into the pits, Ian noticed the car didn't sound quite right, and pointed it out to Matt. While I was getting belted up, Matt checked the engine bay and then sent me out. For some reason, our radios weren't working, so no one was able to tell me that he'd tried to re-seat the radiator. I took the car on to the track, and tentatively took my first full lap at Daytona. The infield was unbelievably slippery, and the banking flat-out fast.

Over the next few laps, I learned a bit about the track, but was well off the pace, turning laps in the 2:25 range (in qualifying, the fastest ST-class car ran a 2:14). But that's my style; I would rather build up to speed and feel comfortable than try to run on the ragged edge the first time out.

On my fifth lap, just after the second infield hairpin, the temperature gauge went from normal to hot. It happened so quickly, in the course of a corner or two, and the engine started to sound off. As I didn't have radio contact, I slowly drove the car around the apron of the banking, trying to cool the engine. But back in the pits it was clear the damage had already been done: the radiator had fallen back off its mounts and had been punctured by one of the serpentine-belt pulleys, losing all of its water in short order, the resulting heat destroying the engine. I was pretty sure that, once again, I would not be racing at Daytona.

But Matt got on the phone and quickly found a spare long block at a wrecking yard in Orlando. They'd stay open for us if we left right away. Two hours later, we arrived back at the track with a nice, low-mile 2.8L from a Z3 roadster stuffed into the back seat of our rented Taurus. Matt's crew had already taken the engine out of the Coupe, and we just managed to get the new block out of the Ford before the garages were closed for the night.

Of course, with all this drama, Neal and I had missed not only second practice, but qualifying too, which meant we'd have to start from the back of the pack. If we managed to start at all. Ian, Rob and I met up with Neal and Susan at a nice Italian restaurant and shared stories of racing, business and New York. It was a nice end to a rather trying day.

Early Friday morning found Ian under the car, working with Matt's crew to re-assemble the Z3. They did it with an hour to spare, despite the starter motor not working. So we had to push-start the car, but against the odds we made the grid for the 3-hour race!

Neal drove first, and made a banzai start from the back, passing four cars before the first corner. Unfortunately, he passed two of them before the start/finish line, which is a no-no in Grand Am Cup. He was called in on the next lap for a drive-through penalty. Then he went out and got in a groove, turning a 2:18.30 before having a little off-track excursion somewhere on the infield. Aside from that minor incident, Neal drove consistently and managed to pass a number of cars.

At the mid-way point there was a yellow at just the right time. Perfect! As we were sharing the refuelling rig with Matt's car, the plan was to have Neal stay out for a few laps while the other car was in the pits. To our surprise, though, Neal came in right away, with the car running on fumes. Matt wasn't pleased. Regardless, I jumped in and they tried to start the car -- remember, the starter didn't work so I needed a push-start. But the team hadn't put fuel in the car, and there really was nothing left in the tank. So after being pushed halfway down the pit lane in a futile effort to start the car, Matt had me pushed behind the wall to wait. So now, I wasn't pleased.

After Matt got in his car, I was pushed back out and they put a little gas in the Z3 and sent me out. This was all under yellow, so despite the fact that I sat in the pits for 13 (!) minutes, we were only three extra laps down. Alas, they brought me in for a complete fill on the next lap, under green, which put us another lap down. In all, a totally botched pit stop.

Regardless, I was racing at Daytona, and keen to make the most of it. Over the next few laps, I became more comfortable with the track, the traffic and the Z3. Even though it was fitted with reasonably new Hoosiers, it was very slick through the infield, with steering corrections required though the exit of both hairpins to counteract the slippy back end. I did start to attack the banking, and using the brakes later and later at the end of the front straight and into the chicane on the back. The Z3's brakes are simply amazing, allowing you to carry a lot of momentum towards the corner and scubbing off speed at the last moment. I got down to low 2:19's, but never was able to get into the 18's. Most of that is a comfort issue: as I know the car better, I'll be able to know its limits. The braking, especially, is very different from the Porsche 944 I drove last year. I'm going to have to use the ABS to best advantage, but am confident that I'll be able to take a few seconds off and get into the 2:16's with the Z3 next year, which will make it a very competitive car at a high-horsepower track that doesn't suit it as well as some other venues (like Phoenix and Tremblant).

In fact, we took a look at the data at the end of the race, and if not for the disastrous pit stop, we would have finished somewhere between 9th and 11th, which would have been in the money and competitive with Matt's new 330i. This underscores an important point, that Grand Am Cup is endurance racing, and in a 3-hour race mistakes are more damaging than being a few seconds off the fastest lap. The co-driver differential also highlights this, as one driver may be very quick, but the second driver may be substantially slower. For example, the new Mazda RX-8s turned laps in the 2:14 range, but I was able to pass two of them during the second stint.

And so, after 35 laps, I drove under the checkered flag on the banking at Daytona. Our #36 BMW Z3 finished 21st in class, and 40th overall out of a 60 car field -- decidedly mid-pack! That said, I finished just behind my friend (and last year's GS1-class champion) Bobby Julian, and just in front of Don Istook (driving the GS-class Audi that he and I piloted last year at Mosport). As I've said, in endurance racing, lots can happen before the finish!

Despite it being a rather challenging weekend, I consider it a success on a number of counts. Firstly, we finished the race, breaking the Daytona curse from last year. We learned a lot about the car (Ian, in particular got a much closer look at the underside than he expected!), and found there's still a lot of merit in the Z3 platform. We learned some of the ins-and-outs of Grand Am and are well on our way to being able to field the car on our own. And we met some great people.

So, some thank-yous: Matt "putting in a new engine is ALWAYS the right thing to do" Connolly put a lot of effort into getting us to the grid. Neal Heffron drove well and I hope that he'll join me for a few more races this season, as his schedule allows. Robert Lavigne helped get the paperwork to Grand Am as needed, and his infectious enthusiasm was steadfast; he never seemed to doubt that we'd start the race. And most importantly to Ian McQuillan, who missed all of the HSR races (that he so wanted to see) while fixing the steering lock and installing the engine. We would not have finished the race without your tireless effort. Thank you.

I should also note our sponsors: Compass360 Design and Advertising, Boxer Autosport (if you think I'm impressed with Ian trackside, you should hear what his clients -- who drive everything from 996 Twin Turbos to vintage 914s, Audis and BMWs -- have to say!), and the folks at PURE Telecommunications. If you use minicomputers, you might want to check out Neal's company, ELI, that deals in used high-end computer equipment. To all, thank you for helping to make it possible for us to race at the pro level.

If you had a chance to watch the race on TV you know it was a nail-biter, especially up at the front. Bobby and Don's cars were battling it out for nearly the whole race before both suffered mechanical glitches. The race was broadcast on SPEED Channel Saturday, February 14th at 4pm. Click on the picture below to watch a Quicktime movie of the Z3 in action. Finally, a caveat: as a backmarker in the slower class, we're on camera when the leaders pass us, so you'll see a lot of passing! Still, we got a lot of screen time (for you interested sponsors) and you can see how good the handling of the Z3 is, as we stick with the 911s pretty well through the corners.

The next Grand Am Cup race is Homestead/Miami at the end of March, and open-wheel specialist Steven Ablondi is scheduled to run with me. GAC is great racing, and I'm looking forward to racing the series for all of 2004.

Karl Thomson