Well, as Reagan used to say, well, I just jumped out of the sunbreak stint and what a kick that was.  Worth the wait.  Jumped in on AJ's last gasps of fuel and then had a ball settling into the still dark night, the cold still dark night (51 degrees), so unless you babied the tires it was very easy to lose the rear end on the first few green corners.  Had some close calls again with GT "schpinners", but avoided catastrophe, which is the primary task I've been assigned.  In the latter portion of the stint I got to play with Butch Leitzinger (that's a technical racing term) in his Brumos Porsche 59.  He passed me, I got him back and he took me again before the stint was over, no rubbing, no nonsense.  I'm only 58 and his car is 59; we had a fun duel as the sun glistened through dark grey clouds, heralding the morning runs.  That's not a biological term.

Soon after cooling down and beginning to tap-tap-tap this particular report, Speed TV's Chris Neville popped over for a quick interview to get a sense of how our car was holding up.  Had to rib him about our first interview perhaps only 4 hours into the race when I predicted it was worth keeping an eye on the 6 car if the word podium meant anything in racing...here we were a lap down in P3. Told him honestly the Ford engine felt like new and the gear box as smooth as silk, way better than in prior years with 8 hours to go and that anything could happen over the final 3 or 4 hours of the race.  He should have interviewed John Pew who was on a roll, piling up 1 minutes 45s left right and center just to really embarrass me, put down a 1:44 and change on his last lap.  Truly great driving.

The 8th hour to go mark just popped up on the scoring and timing screen on Lap 295, right when Burt Frisselle brought a limping 60 back to the pits with the nose ripped off and the splitter splintered into several parts.  Once again, a tiny little missed angle coming out of the bus stop, drop just one wheel and kaboooom, no more splitter.  The 60 crew replaced the entire front end in the pit box in a matter of minutes.  Magnificent work by men mostly unrested all night.

The 88 GT Porsche burst into flames approaching pit lane with John Baker at the wheel, a relatively new driver, consuming most of the car's rear end and bringing out another yellow.  Max Papis in the Ganassi 01 used the double yellow to hit the pits to replace some rear air diffusers and by hook or by crook it took just enough time for Brian Frisselle to scroll around the track into P2 and back on the lead lap.  We'd been sitting a lap down since midnight or so in P3.  Endurance racing is all about conviction, never quitting and an absence of errors.  Many have had very good clean races - in 16.5 hours of intense racing, the 6 car has had only tiny "off" in the first few laps of racing.  If the race gods can just stay distracted for another half dozen or more hours, we have a very good shot at this podium, a very, very good shot.  Believe me, that would be pretty palatable on my last Daytona 24 Hour Rolex race.

Andrea stayed up all night shuttling drivers around, waking them for their shifts, prepping and delivering food for the crews and generally earning her keep.  In Andrea, Mike Shank got a first class local hire who performed way beyond the call of duty and she deserved no unwarranted references to Lollipops in the first race report.  Never lost her smile or her bubble gum all night long.

With less than 7 hours to go and 520 laps in the bag, we were blessed with another yellow, so could avoid having to attack our last brake pad change under green racing conditions.  This helped the MSR 6 car stay on the lead lap, but we had to concede 2nd place to Max Papis in the 01 car.  Trailing only by 2 laps is Lucas Luhr in the very quick 95 SuperLife car, ready to pounce on a podium slot at any minute.  AJ wasted no time crawling through traffic till he campoed out on the 01's rear bumper, making a complete pest of himself.  All of a sudden with no help from warmer temperatures and six and a half hours to all, wouldn't you know the leading cars are drilling 1 minute 42s.  Grand Am is getting a racer's race to broadcast today: P1 (still Rockenfeller in the 9 car), P2 and P3 after almost 18 hours of relentless racing, are 1.8 seconds apart.  You can't make this stuff up.  Thump, thump.  Thump, thump.

More in a little while - need to soak my thumbs in olive oil.