That's what I get for posting from a small screen laptop.Mike Skeen in the 24 hr of Daytona
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Tammer in Philly
- Posts: 10719
- Joined: Feb 12, 2006
- Location: CHI, IL
Corvette is a totally different beast under a totally different ruleset. It's a tube-frame car that shares nothing with a real Corvette except the general shape of the body and an engine block. The Ferrari is an F430 Challenge that you can go buy from a dealer, with some class-specific modifications in addition to the safety equipment.Scottinva wrote:Making his way up? Ferrari is quick, but his corvette he normally races is faster and way more coolz. If you look Joey Atterbury is out there too, and he just joined this forum, his team had mechanical issues its the green porsche gt2.
-tammer
You missed the point, i'm not comparing the cars, i'm just saying he drives a lot of fast cars. Some faster than the Ferrari he is driving in this particular race that is all. Also Joey's name on here is jatterbu , his shop is less than 10 minutes from where I live neat stuff.Tammer in Philly wrote:Corvette is a totally different beast under a totally different ruleset. It's a tube-frame car that shares nothing with a real Corvette except the general shape of the body and an engine block. The Ferrari is an F430 Challenge that you can go buy from a dealer, with some class-specific modifications in addition to the safety equipment.Scottinva wrote:Making his way up? Ferrari is quick, but his corvette he normally races is faster and way more coolz. If you look Joey Atterbury is out there too, and he just joined this forum, his team had mechanical issues its the green porsche gt2.
-tammer
Sorry Mike wasn't able to finish higher but good to see Sacramento boy Joey Hand take the checkered flag.
Joey will be the key note speaker at our Sac Valley BMW CCA annual Dinner this year, as well as Scott Pruett (lives in Auburn about 20 minutes out of town and maintains a winery that we are working a tour for).
Victory for BMW!
Joey will be the key note speaker at our Sac Valley BMW CCA annual Dinner this year, as well as Scott Pruett (lives in Auburn about 20 minutes out of town and maintains a winery that we are working a tour for).
Victory for BMW!
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Tim in N FL
- Posts: 7392
- Joined: Feb 12, 2006
- Location: North Central Florida, USA
- Contact:
Great shot, Jeremy. I would love to have a higher-res version of that one too. Here's another of Mike and his teammates at VIRJeremy wrote:
Great shot, I want a larger version. Yes, that's Mike driving.
and a video of them at a practice session at Daytona in the F430:
http://www.mikeskeen.com/videos/?vidId= ... tube_gdata
My friends and I had fun cheering on Skeen and his compadres whenever we'd spot the yellow Ferrari zooming by. There was one other F430 (white / red livery) in the field that I believe finished the race. When we were sitting in the grandstands around 10pm, we got to see some very nice dueling between these two F430s. That must have been a blast. The yellow car was pulling on the white/red one and was being aggressively driven to boot...particularly through the infield section (pit-out, International horseshoe).
Here's some information on Bennett Racing and their F430 Challenge car:
http://www.bennett-racing.com/index.php
Unfortunately, I did not make it over to the garage area to say hello to Mike or his family. They had their hands full, I'm sure. I seem to recall meeting his Dad up at the 2006 5erFest (Southbend, IN).
dmnaskle dropped me a line to say that the team had some really nice t-shirts and stickers available. for sale. I'm going to drop them a line to see if they're still available.
Best wishes Mike & Bennett Racing
Tim
Well, this explains some things. I thought something was funny with the Bennett team being out so often and for so long. I thought maybe it was just terrible mechanical luck. I didn't realize that there was an "incident" during practice.
Kudos to the team for getting the car back together and running. Hopefully they'll be back again next year.
Thursday evening, the Bennett Racing Ferrari F430 Challenge tangled with another car during night practice and left a mangled mess.
"At least 20 racers from other teams came up to us and told us, 'We're very sorry for your loss. Game over.' said team owner Skip Bennett. "We told them, 'The game is not over,' and they said, 'No way you can fix it by Saturday.'
"We didn't spend the last year and a half so we could sleep two hours before the race."
Of course, the team got a lot a help from another Rolex Series competitor.
"Spirit of Daytona Racing is an unbelievable team," Bennett said. "At 8 p.m. Thursday, right after the accident, they arranged for a flat-bed truck. They took the car to the Spirit of Daytona shop (in nearby Holly Hill). By 10 o'clock, the car was in the shop. At 10:05, team owner Stan Flis came over and handed me the keys to his entire building and asked me to lock it up when we left. He should me where everything was - the parts bins, where they stored the nuts and bolts, everything."
No need to lock up. Bennett and crew chief Doug Taylor never left the building until 9 a.m. Saturday morning, working around the clock to repair the damages.
"You wouldn't have believed what the car looked like," Bennett said. "The wheels were folded up under it and the sides were bashed in. We stock as many spare parts as we can - spare engine, gearbox, uprights, splitters, bodywork, everything, so is was just a matter of removing broken parts, straightening, positioning, reinstalling everything."
They don't stock everything, though.
"We used at least $1,000 in carbon fiber, rebuilding complete body panels," Bennett said.
Bennett and Taylor have been awake since 9 a.m. Thursday morning. Their two hotel rooms have been untouched. In one change of plans, they do plan to spend Sunday night after the race in a hotel before beginning the drive back to Maryland.
Kudos to the team for getting the car back together and running. Hopefully they'll be back again next year.