Grand-Am
Daytona 24: Guy Smith optimistic for Rolex 24
Britain's Guy Smith continued to shine during testing for the Rolex 24 Hour race at Daytona next month lapping the Sebring circuit within half a second of last year's qualifying session for the 12 hour race. The Jim Matthews Panoz-Ford Riley & ...
Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM
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Britain's Guy Smith continued to shine during testing for the Rolex 24 Hour race at Daytona next month lapping the Sebring circuit within half a second of last year's qualifying session for the 12 hour race. The Jim Matthews Panoz-Ford Riley & Scott MkIIIC, which runs in the heavier Grand-Am trim, completed 600 trouble-free miles following a very successful three days and 4000 miles at Daytona the previous week.
The 27 year-old from Hull, was delighted with the progress made and remains optimistic of being able to secure his first victory in the classic endurance race, which takes place on February 2nd/3rd. "The car is great and is consistently quick. This is going to be a great advantage during qualifying and especially the race. It was a bit of a surprise to be so quick this early on so I'm obviously very happy about our chances. It's going to be a tough race, there's no doubt about it but we've proved we have the pace and now the reliability too so I'll going be flat out to get that win."
Team boss Bill Riley was also pleased with the performance of the young Briton, "I'm very happy with how testing has gone. Guy's feedback during the test sessions was fantastic and he's a real hands-on driver, which is great. He's very professional and a pleasure to work with and I really believe now it's up to the other teams to lose this race not us to win it."
The Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona International Speedway starts at 1.00pm local time on February 2nd following qualifying on Thursday and Friday, January 31st/February 1st.
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