Went to sleep early last night, 10 PM to be exact, to ensure a deep and leisurely slumber before the deep and unleisurely lack of slumber expected over the ensuing 36 hours.  Mike Shank had his "boys" showing up around 9:30.  Plan worked like the government's effort to save Lehman Brothers - polite but erroneous 6:30 AM Hilton Hotel wake-up call undermined that latter hours of that little plan.  My hotel room on the 2nd floor looks out over Nascar Turn 4 and the background behind the track was all grey as the weatherman's predictions started rolling in.  This race wouldn't start dry.

USF1's co-founder Ken Anderson popped in to the Michael Shank Racing trailers to swap some stories with the engineers and show them some sketches of his new deep blue creation, ready for the first race of the year.  55 gallon gas tanks are simply incredible, with F1 banning fuel stops for 2010 and beyond.

The driver meeting was moved indoors from Victory Lane, covering all the obvious necessities and clarifying that any car that can't maintain at least 110% of its class leading times needs to retire (either the car or the driver), a common sense rule, especially given some of the issues that caused crashes during practice.  Great little speech from the Rolex 24 honored driver, Vick Elford, comparing 2 man 24 hour races in his day to the spa, manicured, sleeping-in-coaches sofa racing of today. Beautifully pliable, light English humor bouncing off the walls of a large Nascar owned room full of world class drivers applauding his light twist on the upcoming pre-race tension.

Walked over to the fan signing lines as far as you could see, cramping up forearms 45 minutes later.  Doug Harrison couldn't stand the fact that our table had no drawing pad, so ran off to find one, much to the glee of half a dozen walrus-moustached grey beards, beautifully round bowling ball pated fans and other delectable targets who innocently asked for a signature.

The 2:15 PM driver introductions, walking next to their cars down pit lane, a great tradition here, had to be abandoned as heavy rains ploughed through Daytona Beach, forcing teams to kill time in the trailers for an hour before the national anthem and pace car processes started in full gear.  All DPs and GTs were covered in rain protective tarps, an unusual sight for the start of a huge race.  The green flag was called with the pace car still out front for several laps.

On Lap 5 the "real" start, very orderly, was called, but Dixon predictably in the Ganassi 02 couldn't wait to win the race on the first lap, so patiently Max Angelelli, Ozz and Valiante let him through.  [A friend from the Ganassi camp assures me it was Pruett, not Dixon].  Coming out of Turn 6 hitting the baking for the first time Ozz got a good run on Max, side by side and Valiante got a wonderful tow behind Ozz, both making effective passes into the first bus stop.  Max took a strategic and not a tactical view of this and forced no one's hand.

In short order everyone was pacing themselves and Oswaldo took the lead turning 2 minute laps (versus 1:41s to 1:43s for quick dry laps).  Dixon settled back to P5 and then on Lap 9, quite unexpectedly, Michael Valiante in a hoard of traffic, slipped off the back end of the bus stop, picking up enough muck and dirt to force an unscheduled pit top to clean out the radiators and keep the engine from overheating.  Dropped from 2nd-3rd to 15th among the DPs.  Gainsco also had an early lap oops with a flat and had to pit for new rain tires, dropping back behind our 6 car.

More later as the nerves and the race wear on.  Early scorecard proves starting first or last in endurance races has little meaning at all.  After 15 laps Memo Gidley in the 77 Doran Ford is leading the field with Ozz up his rear wing in the 60 car.  Lap times are down to 1:57s as the rain abates.