Photo : Copyright - COLLECTION PRIVEE GILLES BOYER

 

Several previous winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans went to Florida: Andy Wallace (winner in Le Mans in 1988, he won Group E reserved for cars from the 2000s), Gijs van Lennep, Jürgen Barth, Hurley Haywood and Jochen Mass. Winner in La Sarthe in 1989, Mass was teammates with French gentleman-driver Gilles Boyer, a regular at the Le Mans Classic and a connaisseur of vintage Porsches, who talked about the first weekend, which was dedicated to the history of the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Gilles Boyer: "Our arrival at the Daytona airport via Atlanta went well, and we joined our driver and organizer friends on site on Wednesday. I reunited with the beautiful RS IROC in Gulf colours that I had left in Savannah two weeks earlier with two podiums to my credit. But this time with the name Jochen Mass next to mine on the doors..You cannot imagine the happiness and pleasure this gave me! Last year during the races for the Historic Sporstscar Racing with the 2.8 RSR called 'Blackie' by the Americans, my wife Olivia and myself had the opportunity to spend a weekend with the Heritage team and Jochen and his wife Bettina...Sparks flew immediately; so picture not only reuniting on the track this year, in the same car, with George's compliments - who for his part left us the Porsche to roll in the Ferrari Daytona in a driver line-up with Mauro Borella and Arturo Merzario. What a thrill! The first practice sessions went off pretty well. I managed to clock the fifth time in 2:04:38 and Jochen the fourth in 2:03:87. It was looking good for our group of about 30 cars. Ahead of us, three Porsche RSRs and one Mustang GT 5800. That evening we were all together with the team, the drivers, some of the organizers, our French and Swiss friends from Heritage - Frank Ravé and François Mauries in a Porsche RS 3 L, and Yves and Philippe Scemama, also in a Porsche. A great night..and jet lag didn't even affect us!! The following day's program, a day and a night session which was for many of us a big first. We took advantage of that day to go and see the driver line-ups and especially our friends like Jean-Marc Bachelier and Eric Vincenot, Jean-Paul Pagny and Eric Mouez in a Porsche 993 RSR, Jean-Marc Gounon and his son Jules in a Chevrolet Corvette 8300, as well as other driver line-ups from the world over! More than 140 cars entered, it was a great start for a premiere, with on average between one and three drivers...which amounts to nearly 300 competitors at the briefing! But after qualifying, Jochen Mass shared his concerns with me about the RS IROC Gulf: after 6,000 laps, the engine no longer increases in range and starts to make disturbing noises...the first strategy was to control the power supply, but the issue was worse than that. Verdict: cracked valve and spring. Those parts being specific to that engine, a duel ignition RSR, it was too risky to proceed with replacing them with unidentical parts. In its current state, the engine was undamaged; it was unadvisable to go on with inappropriate parts...what a disappointment! That's motorsports though, one has to accept it. Then an unprecedented mobilization happened within the Héritage team. On one hand Mike Banz amd his very powerful 911 RSR proposed to Jochen Mass to join the team for the Classic 24H and my friends François Mauries and Frank Ravé offered me a night stint in the 3L RS. What compassion from the team and its drivers! The race started on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. with Group A (reserved for cars from the 1960s) and right away the Lola T 70s and Ford GT 40s got out in front. Group B (1970s cars) was dominated by the Chevrons but also by the impressive Corvette Greenwood of Gounon, father and son, that slipped in with the equally impressive Porsche 935 K1; the group was completed by Jack Lewis and Tom McGlynn poised to ambush despite a much less powerful car. Group C (1980s cars) was simply magnificent...The Porsche 962 and 956 were the queens of Daytona. Patrick Long (teammates with Patrick Dempsey in Le Mans in 2013 and 2014) had a hard time keeping up with the group with his 964 Cup, dwarfed in the class! Group D (1990s cars) brought to my mind the great era of GT: 993 RSR, 993 GT2, Dodge Viper GTS, Ford Mustang Saleen 5700, Ferrari 333 SP 4000, the Porsche 996 GT3 R, the Lola B2K and Pilbeam MP 84 prototypes were also there...what a group! Group E (cars from the 2000s and 2010s) could be qualified as quasi-modern where Audi R8, Maserati MC 12 GTA, Pescarolo, Riley & Scott MK III, Chevrolet Camaro GTR, Oreca FLM09 were accompanied by several Porsche 996 Cups, 997 Cups, and two superb 991 Cups of Franz Konrad who came more to train than for the race itself. No bad accident tainted that wonderful race; proof of a great atmosphere even though the leaders of each class didn't come to make a simple appearance! Here's to 2016 for the second edition!"

The opening round of the 2015 Tudor United SportsCar (TUSC) Championship, the 24 Hours of Daytona, will take place Saturday and Sunday, January 24th and 25th. The third race of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), the 83rd edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, will take place Saturday and Sunday, June 13-14, 2015.

Jean-Philippe Doret / ACO - Translation by Nikki Ehrhardt / ACO

Photo: DAYTONA BEACH (FLORIDA, U.S.), DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, CLASSIC 24 HOUR, NOVEMBER 12-16 2014. After having rolled at the 2014 Le Mans Classic along with Brian Johnson, lead singer for AC/DC, Jochen Mass (at right), winner of the 1989 24 Hours of Le Mans, was teammates with French gentleman-driver Gilles Boyer (with helmet, at left) at Daytona.