(January 31, 2010) — Miller Barrett Racing completed 19 hours of racing this weekend – the equivalent of seven sprint races in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series – but it wasn’t enough to get to the checkered flag in the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona. The team’s No. 48 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car had a fast start, gaining eight positions in the first hour of the race, then was plagued by mechanical gremlins and hits from other cars for the next 18 hours.
Bryce Miller was starting the second half of a double stint when he was hit by a Daytona Prototype that lost control leaving pit lane. The DP hit a barrier at the pit exit, shot across onto the race track and slammed into the Miller Barrett Porsche. The damage to the driver side of the car was too extensive to repair and the car was retired from the race. Miller alternated driving stints through 19 hours with Luke Hines, Peter Ludwig and Kevin Roush.
GT class race position
start 6h 12h 18h 24h
13 13 14 19 out of race
GT class race report
time driver action
18h50 Miller pit – bumper repair, four tires, fuel
18h57 Miller hit by prototype, turn 1 – out of race
Paul Miller, team owner: “As excruciatingly disappointing as this result is, given all the hard work the crew did through the whole weekend, the thing that was so exciting to me was we ended up with some great chemistry and a great bunch of guys working really hard together for a common purpose. And we all had fun working together. It was a great effort.”
Luke Hines: “This race, at the end of the day, was just sheer bad luck. We had bad luck for the whole race, pretty much, from start to end. That happens sometimes; hopefully, we’ll get the good luck the next time. It was a great experience for me to learn and then come back and push harder. I think the team is going to be going somewhere. It’s a young team – when they get the luck, for sure results will come.”
Bryce Miller: “This is just a heart-breaking experience because the team was set to finish the race. We seemed to have most of the issues sorted on the car and took the time during some pitstops to really address those issues. The crew did an incredible job to rebuild the front and the four corners and somehow in the end, the car was still very driveable and very quick. That’s a testament to the team; they did a great job. We’ll take from this the experience to prepare for Daytona next year.”
Kevin Roush: “Obviously, it’s very heart-breaking given how hard the team worked changing the gearbox to get us back out there. In spite of Peter getting a little contact from another prototype that hurt the alignment, Bryce was just flying at the end and the car looked like it was awesome. Peter said it was still a joy to drive, so it was definitely on pace, just had a whole bunch of mishaps. The team did a fantastic job and gave us a good shot to finish at the end.”
partners
Miller Barrett Racing competes with the support of three international sponsors. Marquis Jet is the recognized leader in private jet cards because it’s the only program that offers exclusive access to NetJets – the gold standard in private aviation – 25 hours at a time. IPC Information Systems is a leading provider of mission-critical communications solutions to financial services firms. Total Lubricants is the world’s fourth-largest publicly traded integrated international oil and gas company.
