Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona Couch Kit
I love settling in for these long distance races with all manner of televisions and computer screens at my disposal, like some all-knowing war commander. In reality I am just watching like the wide-eyed fan I am while Andrea rolls her eyes.
Here’s how I’ll manage the 24 Hours of Daytona race this weekend. (BTW, if you’re unfamiliar with the race, read this piece by Sam Posey. This year marks the 50th running of the event.)
Start time: Saturday, January 28, 3:30PM Eastern standard time
TV coverage explained: Speed (TV): 3:30PM - 11PM, then SpeedTV.com until 9AM, then Speed (TV) until 3:30 checkered flag. All times Eastern.
Live streams:
- SpeedTV web stream (11PM Sat - 9AM Sun), or this hijacked Speed television feed. MotorsTV (in French).
- Radio feed: Radio Le Mans (with John Hindhaugh, my favorite) MRN (timing and scoring on top, radio feed with controls at bottom)
- Team streams (mostly pit views, some cars): Turner motorsports, TRG, Magnus Racing
- Track views: Tower view looking at T1
Timing and scoring:
- Grand-Am live timing and scoring
Other useful stuff:
- Entry list
- Graphic spotter’s guide view of all the entries by Andy Blackmore
- Twitter searches: #rolex24, #daytona24, Metacool racers list
- New cars I’m eager to watch: Audi’s R8 making a semi-factory-backed debut (with two teams), the new “Corvette DP” prototypes (five cars, including the #90 seen above)
2011 info, just to keep in mind:
- Winner’s average speed: 106.877 mph
- Winner’s total laps: 721
- Winner’s best lap: 1:40:936
- Winners: Hand, Pruett, Rahal, Rojas (Ganassi BMW-powered Riley)
Ronnie Peterson in his 1974 Lotus 76, with the bizarre but interesting (and, sadly, ineffective) biplane rear wing. Peterson was in the odd position of racing with the #1 on his car despite not being the champion (Lotus had won the constructor’s championship in ‘73, but his teammate Emerson Fittipaldi left at the end of that season for MacLaren). In keeping with the F1 numbering system, Lotus had #1 and #2 for their drivers in 1974, giving the remaining Peterson the numero uno.
Although this photo isn’t labeled as such, I believe it was taken at Jarama for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Last month in upstate New York, Andrea and I went flea market digging before Sarah and Justin’s wedding. I found this beat up 1/62-scale Tomica model of Rolf Stommelen’s 1978 Toyota Celica Turbo. He raced this in the 1978 of Germany’s DRM, which proved to be an awful season, rife with DNFs. Stommelen was one of the best sportscar drivers of his time (he won Daytona four times) in addition to his time in Formula 1 and a small stint in NASCAR. He died behind the wheel of his Porsche 935 at Riverside in 1983. I like this picture of Rolf best.
24 Hours of Le Mans couch kit
Until 6AM tomorrow morning I am hunkered down watching my favorite motor race in the world. I was lucky enough to attend the race twice as a team member but these days I watch from the command center known as my laptop. If you want to follow along, I’ve pulled together some of the better resources here:
Audio stream
- Radio Le Mans: The team at Radio Le Mans does round-the-clock, we-never-stop coverage and they are quite good — and funny, which is what you need when you cover something for that long.
TV streams
- Eurosport hijacked through someone’s Justin.tv account. Seems to be delayed from live by about 15 seconds.
- Speed.tv splits their coverage between broadcast and online, meaning that when it’s on TV it’s not online. That is sort of frustrating, but when the feed is on it is very, very crisp. Click the bottom right thumbnail.
- Corvette on-board: Actually the same as the Speed link above, but click on the top thumbnail on the right.
- Audi on-board: The little map on the right is useful. Note the audio here is from Radio Le Mans.
- Peugeot on-board: This is really great and you can control multiple cameras from on-boards to pit views.
Timing/Scoring
- ACO: Official timing and scoring from Le Mans
- Baekdal’s dashboard: A mix of a twitter feed from official sources and timing and scoring.
