Daytona Rolex 04/02/2001   Racing By Braille PK Sport At Daytona   79 cars started at Daytona, and every team and every driver has a story to tell. This one is a very good one. Mike Pickup put the effort together, with Geoff Lister, Mike Youles, Fred Moss and Matt Turner down to drive. They didn’t go to the Test Days this year, and for Geoff and Fred it was their first experience of Daytona. Geoff was down to set the Qualifying time, so naturally he was first out in Thursday’s first session. That brought a delirious whoop of delight from the lead driver. Geoff Lister (left) loved the place, in particular ‘honking’ round the banking. That slang word would have another meaning for him on raceday, unfortunately, but all was well initially. The others got some seat time in the first two free sessions, Mike Youles’ example being typical – “about six laps when it was greasy on Thursday, then another six in the dry on Friday.” It’s amazing, isn’t it, how preparations for the race involve the drivers getting so few laps? “I wasn’t too fussed,” said Mike Youles. “The car was just about perfect.” The Thursday Qualifying session saw everyone out together. This wasn’t the ‘crash fest’ that might have been expected, as all the teams put their star drivers in the cars to get a time. Traffic was still a problem, and the track was drying out towards the end when all the best times were set. Geoff almost timed it perfectly. Mike Pickup got him at a 1:59, but this was on the lap #60 completed after the flag had fallen – it didn’t count (it would have done in Europe). What would have been an excellent sixth in class became tenth with a 2:00.694. Never mind, that would do nicely, with another Qualifying session to come. First lap out in Friday’s Qualifying session, and the sort of racing luck that typified this meeting for some. A stone picked up in one of the vents in a brake disc, damaging the caliper and breaking the wheel bearing. #60 didn’t set a time, and the team would have to rely on the wet Thursday time for their grid position. They were stuck down in 72nd place, out of the 79 cars to start. Geoff (with Mike, left) was starting to feel unwell on race morning with what was probably more than a head cold, but he would start the race anyway. It was a blinding first stint, hauling the PK Porsche all the way from near the back to 39th position – over 30 places made up in an hour. He handed over to Mike Youles, and disappeared towards the medical centre. “I was feeling really rough. While they were examining me, I threw up (‘honked’) all over the floor. I was incapable of driving. My temperature went through the roof and I was sent back to the hotel. I was sweating so much I had to ask room service to change the sheets. I didn’t get out of bed until Monday, by which time I’d lost a stone.” So that was Geoff out of the equation in his first Rolex 24. ‘Youlesy’ (above) took over the car for the second stint, which became a double as a full course caution brought out the Safety Car. More excellent progress was made, #60 climbing up to 32nd after three hours and 27th after four, by which time Fred Moss had just got in the car. Ten laps in the fifth hour told a story of misfortune, Fred crashing into the spinning Cirtek Porsche #65. By then, the wet track was causing real problems in the cockpit. An hour was lost replacing the front end and all three radiators, not helped by the fact that Fred had gone so far off the track that he wasn’t sure where he was. “Are you somewhere in Daytona?” asked the frustrated team owner (never missing a chance to have a little dig at a driver). It took 20 minutes to get the car back for repairs. The car slipped down the leaderboard to 52nd after six hours. Matt Turner double stinted then, followed by a Youles double which brought them back up to 33rd after ten hours, almost exactly where they had been after two hours. They were now 35 laps down on the GT class leader, but at Daytona, that’s not the end of the world. The next drama was a broken gearbox mount. “We lashed it up initially,” explained Mike Pickup (‘Adey’ under the car, left, Fred Moss at the wheel, below). “Porsche have changed the gearbox mounting for this year, but it broke. That’s progress. We weren’t the only ones to have the problem.” The starter was damaged though, and when Matt spun on his IN lap to have proper repairs carried out, more time could have been lost getting the car back. But it struggled into life, arrived back in pit-lane, and went behind the wall for a new mounting and starter. The job was finished at 03.30, at which point Youles’ “Ben Hur run” began. This was the low point of the night for many, as the rain came down harder than at any point so far. The three PK drivers who had driven in the wet (not Geoff, still sweating back at the hotel) had all had problems even seeing where they were going. The reason? The car was running without quarter lights behind the A pillars, and “water was pissing in around the screen, straight into the car,” according to Youlesy. “We had so much water in the car, the suction effect was causing it to bubble up off the floor. It was swimming in water, and we had a film of water right across the screen. That was mixed with anti-freeze from the broken radiators earlier on, plus all the crap off the track. The only clear part was a narrow strip of about two inches right at the bottom, where the fan could clear it. It was racing by braille.” You get an idea of the filth on the screen – the outside at least – from the photograph below. “I was scanning for brake lights up ahead, as I couldn’t see the cars until their brake lights came on. I was watching the wall on the banking, trying to keep 10 feet from it. “Into Turn 1 was OK, as I could see the apex of the corner out of the left side of the car. The little chicane was fairly blind; I had to rely on following people into there, but I was still on the grass half a dozen times as I just couldn’t see. “At the first Horseshoe, I was driving from memory as the visibility was so poor – as it was at the fifth gear kink - but it’s amazing how the human brain can analyse the slightest bit of information and tell you where you are. The second Horseshoe was the darkest part of the circuit and I used the line marking the right hand edge of the circuit to get my bearings, as this was illuminated by the lights. “The sprint up onto the banking was easier as the lights picked out the right hand line again. “I used the two inch strip at the base of the screen to see anything on the approach to the Bus Stop, then jumped onto the brakes at the second marker, looking left to find the turn in point. I went off there once, just stopping in front of the tyre wall. “I had one spin out of the Bus Stop Chicane, exiting with opposite lock in fourth gear. I was going backwards, facing the traffic, but backed it onto the flat area at the bottom, spun it round and carried on in third. “The flat out section past the pit entry was the worst area. I was driving blind at 180, just like being behind a lorry on the motorway, but with no wipers. A couple of times I was over the yellow line because I just lost track of where the road went.” Mike Pickup: “In the annals of PK Sport, that wasn’t just a great drive, that was a mega drive.” “I took time out of a lot of cars too,” continued Youles. Something of an understatement that. He stayed in the car from 03.30 until 07.00, and looking at the lap charts from 04.00 for the next three hours, he took laps back from every GT entry except the #81 G&W Porsche. He somehow lost a lap to that one (perhaps a freak of the charts and at what time cars passed the timing line), but took two laps out of the first and second placed #31 Porsche and #54 BMW. See what Pickup means by a “mega drive”? “The tyres were like threepenny bits (an old, pre-decimal, octagonal UK coin), but I thoroughly enjoyed it,” rejoiced Youles. “I could have done another couple of hours.” Three and a half in those conditions was enough though, especially as there’s a four hour limit at the wheel. There was one more incident during this pre-dawn epic. “My headset was playing up – I radioed the guys and said click twice if you can hear me. So they all clicked and I heard about ten clicks! So I pointed at the pits to indicate that I was coming in. I thought they might be worried about the tyres.” Pickup: “What’s the ****ing problem?” Youles: “You keep buzzing in my ***ing ears. I thought you wanted me in.” Pickup: “No, ****ing well get back out there.” Youles: “I ****ing will. Fill it up. And I’m not ****ing coming back.” Tensions eased after 07.00 when Youlesy got out of the car. Pickup told him to go and take a rest, then come back and finish the race. “Shall I come back about midday?” “No, about ten, for the last three hours.” Sadly, after all that effort, a finish wasn’t on the programme. Fred Moss took over and ran across a particularly bumpy area of ‘grass’ at the Chicane, wiping off the front of the car again. Ironically, he was due in on that lap. Repairs were possible, but would have dropped them well down again. Push it away, guys. With Fred unable to double stint, Matt and Mike (in particular) had shouldered most of the load, but they were destined not to get that deserved finish. “I’m convinced we can win that race,” said Mike Pickup afterwards. “But you do need a little bit of luck. The Dunlops were superb. Micky Butler from Dunlop spent almost the whole race with us; he made the decisions, and they were all correct. The slicks were very worn at one point, but they held out to the end of that stint. They were first class.” There was an amusing Dunlop story somewhere during that long old night. Steve Tuckie had gone to the ‘bathroom’, and there was no one on the ‘Dead Man’s Handle’ for the next pit-stop. Mike Pickup asked Dunlop’s Micky Butler to do it, but when Chris went over the wall to add the fuel – none flowed. All eyes looked to the fuel tank, and there was our helpful tyre man, pumping the handle! He’d seen the mechanics pumping the handle to fill the tank behind the wall, and he thought he was doing the right thing. Now then, what are Youles and Pickup planning for the rest of the season? There will be a full PK Privilege programme of course, but somehow one gets the feeling that Mike Pickup might not want to stop at that. Youles has won C2 in a certain 24 hour race, and Pickup has really got the bug for the longer races. The final photograph is Mike Youles at Orlando Airport on Monday; we think the spectacles are his joke pair. Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport