The 50th anniversary of the Daytona 24 Hours kicks off in style! Under bright Floridian sunshine, the drivers of the 11 Daytona Prototype cars and 37 GT machines fired up their engines in unison with the command “Start Your Engines”, made by special guest Sir Jackie Stewart.
Hotdog company Sahlen's racing squad Team Sahlen started with two Mazda RX-8 GTs, cars #42 and #43. The team had the #49 RX-8 GT on hand as a reserve car. The best bets for the title, SpeedSource had Sylvain Tremblay as starting driver in the #70 SpeedSource RX-8 GT.
One hour into the race and the car had moved up to 14th before the first driver change, to young Canadian James Hinchcliffe. At the three-hour mark the car had risen to 9th.
Joe Foster took the wheel at the start in the #40 Dempsey Racing RX-8 GT. After 45 minutes, he came in to hand over to Patrick Dempsey. Although Patrick had a spin at turn 1, there was fortunately no damage to the car and he was able to continue. After his stint, Dempsey appeared for a media interview and said, “We are heading into the night session. I think I will have to pay attention to the Bus Stop chicane. It is important that I watch my mirrors and make sure none of the faster DP cars are approaching when I'm going into the corners. Then I brake and turn-in. Some parts of the track have become slippery as time has elapsed.”
At this point of the race, the #40 RX-8 was running 21st, while the #42 RX-8 was 12th.
Just three hours after the race had begun, the very long night session was upon the drivers.
There was concern about the famous ‘night fog' that envelops the circuit when temperatures are lower during the wee hours, in contrast to the relative warmth of daylight.