Gearing up for the Rolex 24 green flag
“We’re definitely in the deep end, that’s for sure. We’ve been thrown to the wolves. But I’ve taken the challenge quite well. I have a great opportunity with a great team, and I’m really looking forward to the race.” DEVLIN DEFRANCESCO ON BEING THE YOUNGEST DRIVER IN THE PROTOTYPE CLASS
At 2:40 p.m. Saturday, at Daytona International Raceway in Florida, the 56th Rolex 24 will get the green flag and it will be a race filled with stories.
Hearts will be heavy as racers and spectators alike remember one of the greatest racing drivers and personalities who ever strapped into a racing car, Dan Gurney, who won the very first sports car endurance race at Daytona back in 1962, codriving a Lotus 19B-Coventry Climax with fellow Californian Frank Arciero.
Although it was only a three-hour affair that first time, it was fitting that Gurney — who died last weekend at age 86 — would win the first International Championship for GT Manufacturer to go along with his successes as a driver in Formula 1, NASCAR and IndyCar, and as a designer and manufacturer of racing cars, and as a team owner. A prerace salute in his honour is planned.
Meanwhile, two-time world Formula One champion Fernando Alonso will take part in the marathon as a driver for United Autosports in the Prototype class. Last year, Alonso took a one-race sabbatical from his day job at McLaren to drive in the Indianapolis 500. This year, he’s going to try his hand in sports cars as a Ligier LMP2 driver with teammates Lando Norris (he won the 2017 FIA Formula 3 championship) and Phil Hanson, the Asian Le Mans LMP3 champion.
Many eyes will be on Alonso, 36, as he takes a crack at another form of racing while heading toward his eventual retirement.
IndyCar and NASCAR team owner, the legendary Roger Penske, has teamed up with Acura to make a return to sports car racing. Penske is all business; there is rarely room for sentiment. Ergo, Helio Castroneves, who won the Indianapolis 500 three times for the Captain (he also finished second three times), has been demoted to sports cars and will team up with Ricky Taylor and Graham Rahal in one car while another ex-Penske racer, Juan Pablo Montoya, who also was No. 1 for the boss at Indy, will share a second team car with Dane Cameron and Simon Pagenaud.
Can Team Penske be as successful in sports cars as it’s been in IndyCar and NASCAR? Most in the know won’t bet against it.
Two up-and-coming young guns, Devlin DeFrancesco of Toronto, and Austin Cindric, son of Penske Racing IndyCar Team President Tim Cindric, both teenagers, will be co-driving an ORECA LMP2 in the Prototype class for JDC-Miller Motorsports.
Cindric is known to Ontario racing fans as the driver who won the NASCAR Camping World Series truck race last Labour Day weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park by knocking his opponent for the lead, Kaz Grala, off the track on the last lap.
We’ll return to talk to DeFrancesco momentarily.
Finally, one of the great all-time and all-’round racing champions, Scott Pruett, will be hanging up his helmet at the conclusion of the Rolex 24 Sunday afternoon. A veteran of IndyCar racing, NASCAR stock cars, IMSA, Trans-Am and Grand-Am sports cars, Pruett is 57 (nearly 58) and he knows it’s time.
We’ll spend some time with him in a few minutes, too.
Last weekend, I got a call from Devlin DeFrancesco. Originally from Toronto (he was 15 weeks premature and weighed less than a pound when he was born, and now he’s a five-foot-six, 127-pound toughas-nails race driver who’s going places, let me tell you), he was staying at his parents’ house in Fort Lauderdale while waiting to start his first Rolex this weekend.
Unlike some Canadian racing drivers — F1driver Lance Stroll comes to mind — who hire themselves PR firms to either plant stories on the front pages of national newspapers or pay for “documentaries” to get airplay on all-sports TV networks, DeFrancesco is quietly going about his business in Europe, driving for the famous U.K. motorsport company Carlin.
Winner of numerous karting championships before going into single-seat formula cars — he won the Spanish F3 championship this past year — DeFrancesco is preparing to race in the FIA Formula 3 Championship in 2018. Guys who win in that league — and Lando Norris is a prime example — are often on a fast trip to the big time.
But first thing’s first. I asked DeFrancesco about driving a highpowered Prototype this weekend at Daytona.
“I did the Roar (a three-day test for Rolex entries in early January called the Roar Before the 24), and that’s all the experience I’ve had in a Prototype,” he said. “I did about 60 laps. It was cool. The car was mega to drive.
“The power was quite a step up from a Formula 3 car. Once you get used to the power, it’s quite nice to drive. I think I adapted quite quickly, and I think we looked quite OK. We were the second-fastest ORECA car, and the team did a fantastic job. I think we have a really good car, and I’m really looking foward to racing it.”
DeFrancesco said he couldn’t predict a podium but that anything can happen over 24 hours.
“You never know,” he said. “First, you have to make it through the 24 hours, which is very hard to do. But we have a great group of guys. We’ve learned a lot about the package, so I think anything is possible. I definitely don’t discount it, that’s for sure.”
He said he’ll be the youngest driver in the Prototype class. “I turned 18 on Jan. 17; Austin is 19, and our two other co-drivers are 27 and 28. So, we’re definitely in the deep end, that’s for sure. We’ve been thrown to the wolves. But I’ve taken the challenge quite well. I have a great opportunity with a great team, and I’m really looking forward to the race.”
He said he’s also excited about doing FIA F3 with Carlin.
“They do a very good job,” he said. “We’ve done a bit of winter testing, one or two days, but until we get out and test with the other entries in the championship shortly before the first race, we won’t really know where we are, but I think we look strong.”
He said the plan is to do two years in FIA F3.
“It is a very competitive series,” he said. “This will be year one and we’ll see how we do this year before we make any decisions. It really depends on how it all goes.”
That racing in Europe separates the men from the boys, let there be no doubt.
“In karting, it was insane how close it was,” he said. “A tenth (of a second) could be the difference between P1and P9. That’s why FIA F3 is going to be so tricky. It is very closely matched. This year, I think it was Norisring, which is a short track, but the difference between P1 and P18 was four-tenths. It was very close.”
When I first interviewed this kid, it was 2013, and I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. “A NASCAR driver,” he replied.
He still has an open mind, saying his goal is to be a well-paid professional racing driver, whatever the class or form of racing he finds himself in.
“I think the rules now state that you have to do one season in Formula 2 before you can go to Formula One,” he said. “But that is way down the line. Things could change. You could go to IndyCar, you could go to sports cars. In the short term, the goal is to perform as best I can next weekend and then in FIA Formula 3. That is the main focus.”
DeFrancesco said he goes to the gym six days a week to stay fit for racing and is too focused for a girlfriend. He lives with his manager in England and has to be driven everywhere.
“I can’t drive in England,” he laughed. “I have a licence, but I can’t afford the insurance. They want something like £10,000 to insure me. They seem to think that I’m going to get in the car and go out and drive like some racing driver.”
Hey, he’s got talent and a great sense of humour. I suggest great things are in store for young Devlin DeFrancesco.
Now, once upon a time, Scott Pruett’s future looked rosy and the world was his oyster, too. But that was then and this is now, and the curtain is coming down overnight Saturday on Pruett’s illustrious career. I sat down with him at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last summer when the IMSA sports cars were racing there and talked frankly about the end of the line — a line we all reach sooner or later at whatever we do.
“But I’m in a great place in my life,” he said during our chat. “The good Lord blessed me with this incredible career — go-karts, sports cars, Trans-Am, 10 years of IndyCar, two years of NASCAR and then varied other road courses. Here I am driving for Lexus, and we’ve made huge leaps (in the GT Daytona class). When you look at all those great car companies, Lexus is the one I want to be involved with in the future.”
Pruett, who seems to be fit as a fiddle and maybe looks 35, said he’s way beyond his best before date but that even he’s surprised at how well he’s been able to perform.
“That’s one thing about professional athletes,” he said. “If you’re not still putting up the numbers, you’re the first one to get kicked out the door. That’s reality. I’ve been fortunate to be fast, still getting it done but at the same time faced with reality.
“The nice thing is not only am I still able to drive, but I’m an ambassador for Rolex watches and Lexus, and I also have a wine business that has just been going exceptionally. The whole family is involved in it (he and his wife Judy have three children), and our winery is one of the highest rated in the world, not just California. So, there are other things for me beyond racing, that’s for sure.”
Pruett said other racing personalities have wines but they aren’t as involved as he is.
“Rico Abreu (a sprint car racer), he and his family went from wine to racing. I’ve gone from racing to wine. Jeff Gordon and Mario (Andretti) have wines but they aren’t out there in the vineyards doing the winemaking. A big piece of me is wanting to do the work. I want to be out there, and I’m doing all of it, and I love it.”
Pruett said he wants to continue to be around racing after he retires but doesn’t want an active involvement.
“I have no interest in owning a team” he said. “IndyCar talked to me about being their chief steward, and I had no interest there. Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi, Andretti — they pushed really hard for me to do that after I finished with this, but I didn’t see myself there.
“I love where I’m at right now, I’m enjoying it. I can do the ambassador component, do the winery component. So, as I move forward, I know I will be in and around racing somewhere, somehow.
“I know what I don’t want to be, though: I don’t want to own a team and I don’t want to be a chief steward.”
Pruett told me last summer that he still felt as fast and as good as he ever did.
“You really have to fight Mother Nature, though,” he said. “I’m in the gym every day, and when I think I’ve done enough, I go and walk my vineyard, every row. It takes two hours. I have to work that much harder to keep my strength and my endurance. That’s just the reality of age. You have to work harder. I look at my son who’s 17, and all he has to do is look at a set of weights and he gets stronger. I have to work my ass off just to maintain where I’m at.” He doesn’t have any regrets. “I still love the sport,” he said. “I’ve had my tough times, all the stuff I’ve broken — shoulders, knees, my back, ribs, fingers — it doesn’t come without sacrifice. I feel that every day.”
And even last summer, the idea of retirement was weighing on him.
“I agree that it’s better to get out before they tell you to get out,” he said. “One of two things will happen. One, I won’t be getting the job done, or two, I’ve given it almost 50 years of my life. Next year will be 50 years. I started when I was eight. Every year for 50 years, I raced. I might just get to the point where I say I’d rather be in my vineyard with my wife.”
As of tomorrow afternoon, a little after 2:30, you now know where you’ll be able to find Scott Pruett. Northern California wine country, with Judy and the kids. nmcdonald@thestar.ca