Frisselle brothers Daytona 24H race report

Frisselle Racing Scores Seventh in 50th Rolex 24

#77 Doran Racing Ford Dallara: Brian Frisselle, Burt Frisselle, Jim Lowe, Paul Tracy

Photo by: Eric Gilbert

Daytona Beach, FL (29 January 2012) - The Rolex 24 At Daytona has long been recognized as one big sprint race.

Unfortunately in every sprint race, every step matters, and all it took was one quick misstep for the Frisselle brothers’ run in the 2012 Rolex 24 At Daytona to be compromised.

The pair joined Jim Lowe and Paul Tracy in the No. 77 Combos/Circle K Ford-Dallara for the historic 50th running of the event and battled back after an early-race motor issue to finish seventh.

Brian qualified the car 10th and as he opened the 24-hour endurance classic, he immediately noticed that the No. 77 was down on power. Following his hour-long opening stint, the team sent the No. 77 Ford to the garage where the Roush-Yates engineers quickly identified the problem, replacing a coil and spark plugs to have the car back on track, fighting from several laps down.

Burt returned to the order deep in the field, but the persevering team continued on with all four drivers cycling through and running clean and trouble-free laps. The team did everything they could to make up time. But in a race that saw few cautions and ran a blistering fast pace that set a new DP-era record of 761 laps completed at Daytona International Speedway, the group just did not catch the lucky breaks they needed.

“It wasn’t what we wanted,” said Brian. “I was really disappointed to start off with that coil issue right at the beginning, but other than that the car ran very smoothly the rest of the race. Burt and Paul did a great job and I’m just happy to finish this long race. We’ve seen cars come back from being several laps down, so we didn’t want to give up. But this race just was not ours. I think it shows how perfectly it has to go to win this race--one small problem and that was it. Thanks to the team for the effort, all day and all night and all day. On to the next one.”

“It was a bummer that we fell down so many laps right at the beginning because I feel like if we hadn’t of had that one issue I think we would have been in contention for a top-five,” added Burt. “We knew that we didn’t have the outright pace, but once we got the car sorted it was just fuel and tires the rest of the way and that would have probably paid off with a stronger finish. At least we made it to the finish and got a start on the Endurance Championship here. Hopefully we’ll be back in action soon, and can build on this start to the year.”