by Darrell Waltrip

Updated: January 27, 2008, 2:04 PM EST 8 comments

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The cars are amazingly prepared; the teams work months ahead of time getting ready for a race like this to make sure that every part and piece is absolutely flawless. You are going to go out there and run thousands of miles, make thousands of gear shifts and use lots of braking as you tackle the road-course during the 24-hour endurance race at Daytona International Speedway.

Let me tell you folks, this course is very unique. Here's what a lap is like: You bring the car out from the infield portion of the course, drive it up the 33 degree high banks and run it down the back straightaway over 200 mph, then you slam on the brakes, downshift, and go through the chicane bus stop and bounce the thing back onto the racetrack and into Turn 3 of the traditional oval layout, go into the tri-oval down to the first turn of the road course into a flat corner — an easy place to get into trouble — and back onto the infield road course.

I've been watching a little bit of the race and it's a lot different than what it used to be. One big difference from a few years back is that there's a lot more lights at Daytona than there used to be. When I took part in the event, people said they were "racing at night" — and they weren't lying. It used to get pitch dark because back then the only lights were on the race cars themselves. I remember back in 1987 when I drove a Protofab Chevrolet Camaro with Terry Labonte, Lyn St. James and Greg Pickett, you would have to get used to looking for headlights because when those GT3 cars came up flying behind you, you better get out of the way. The only warning you had back then was the flashing of their lights.

The other thing I've noticed is that we didn't have caution flags. I've been watching this year's race a little bit and I'm a little disappointed in how many times a caution flag has been brought out. A true road race is one in which there are no full course cautions — only local cautions. You'll have a caution waving in a turn or wherever the problem may be, but you don't throw a full-course yellow every time somebody spins out.

I know in a 24-hour race things get spread out and cars can get laps ahead of everybody. It may not be as entertaining to watch as if everybody were bunched up, but once again I'm witnessing the overuse of the caution flag ... particularly in a road race. You watch the 24 Hours of Le Mans or a Formula One race and you rarely see any full course yellows, you slow down where the accident is and then you keep on getting after it.

I guess they've made it a little easier and a little more entertaining with the cautions and the lights around the track. It makes it a lot easier for the teams and drivers — it was tough driving half of the race in pitch black, so maybe it is a little bit easier than it was back in the day. And you don't turn off into Turn 3 of the oval going over 220 mph in these cars today like we did back then in the Porsche 962s, Jaguars, Toyota Eagles, Nissans ... those were some incredible race cars and they would fly around that racetrack.

In fact, the reason they put the chicane in was because the bodywork over the tires would create so much heat that, combined with the drivers going so fast, there would be a lot of blown tires going down the back straightaway. So they put the chicane in to slow down the cars.

Watching this year's event makes me remember my first time there back in 1983. Bill France and everybody over there wanted to get some of the NASCAR guys involved in the 24-hour race to create a little bit of extra interest. There was an Aston Martin that was coming over for the race, but they needed a sponsor and a driver and Bill wanted me to try to help them. I was driving for PepsiCo at the time, so I talked to everybody over there and they said "Hey, let's go down there and do it, let's get a little exposure and it could be fun."

I made a deal with the guys at Aston Martin, and it was funny because the name of the car was "Nimrod" which means nimble warrior if I remember correctly. It wasn't the greatest car, they just brought it over here for some R&D work because they had run it in a shorter endurance race and now they wanted to see how it would do in a 24-hour event, but the car was heavy and under-powered. I certainly had no idea what I was getting into.

When I got down to Daytona Beach, Fla., I realized I could hardly speak the team's language and we had trouble communicating. I'll tell you how bad it was: they were telling me that if anything were to happen to me out on the course that there were tools on the right hand side and a torch if it was at night. As an old Southern boy who works in the shop with a cutting torch and all that kind of stuff, when they said there was a torch inside of it I was like, "That's it boys, DW doesn't drive a car with a torch tied inside of it, that sounds a little dangerous to me." They cracked up when I said that, and then they explained to me that a "torch" was a flashlight and not a cutting torch. There were other times when we had trouble communicating.

The car drove okay, it was fine, but we needed another co-driver — we had a Colombian fellow named Guillermo Maldonado who came over with the team and me. I told them, "Me and A.J. Foyt are good buddies and he likes to run this race, let me call him and get him down here." I got A.J. on the phone and told him what we were up against and after we talked he agreed to do it — but oh by the way, I had to talk to Pepsi to get A.J. 10 grand to join the team.

All this Aston Martin group wanted to do was run the car and see how it would do ... they wanted to low-profile the whole thing and not make any big headlines or anything. But here we are, the first day down in the Daytona garage, and here comes A.J. — and that's like Dale Earnhardt Jr. walking into the garage today — every guy in the media flocked over to the car to see what Foyt was doing. The first thing A.J. notices when he arrives is the Avon tires on the car and he says "We can't run the car with these tires, we have to put Goodyear tires on it." He goes and finds every Goodyear engineer in Daytona and had them over at the car and we are swapping the old tires and putting on Goodyear ... and here comes more press to find out what's going on. Foyt takes the car out for a run, comes back in and he is complaining because he doesn't like the tires because they don't drive right.

Anyway, this low-profile operation all of a sudden found its names, its car, A.J. and me all over every newspaper in the America I think at the time.

Ask DW
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During the race, the car ran pretty good. It rained that evening and I had never driven in the rain before, but man that's a blast and I love doing it. The car was actually heavy enough that it performed well in the rain. I noticed in the stint right before I got out of the car that the oil light was coming on and that it was flashing. I told the crew chief that the light was coming on, so they shut it off, put some oil in it and they tried to get A.J. to get in the car, but he said "No, no, no, let Guillermo take it out."

As expected, Guillermo takes it out and through no fault of his own, the car blew up, dropping us out of the race.

I found out later that the reason A.J. didn't want to get in the car was that Preston Henn, a good friend of his, had asked him if he could help his team out. Henn already had Bob Wallek, Claude Ballot-Lena and himself — all great road racers — but they asked A.J. anyway. The race was practically over by then, and I think you have to drive a certain amount of hours to be eligible to be declared a winner, but A.J. made it. Not everybody was happy about that, Wallek slammed the door on A.J. in one of their shift changes and refused to go to Victory Lane if A.J. went, but Henn got them all together and got it all worked out before the race ended.

They won the race and A.J. took my $10,000, the 24 hours of Daytona trophy, a Rolex watch and went on back to Houston and left me holding the bag.

As I mentioned earlier, I went back down again in 1987 with Labonte, Pickett and St. James. We were driving a Bob Riley Camaro in the GT Class against the Roush Mustangs and we were killing them. We had a pretty comfortable lead and I drove until about midnight, then I got out of the car and they told me, "Go back to the hotel, get some sleep and get back here at 6 a.m. for your next stint." So I left that night and went to bed. Woke up the next morning and got back to the garage and everything was gone — the car, the equipment, crew, everybody on the team disappeared.

I walk around trying to figure out what the heck is going on and I find out that the brakes went out on the car and Terry lost control and backed the car into the fence at about 4 a.m. So the team loaded everything up and left, but they failed to call me and tell me.

Those were my two Rolex 24 adventures, but even though my two times weren't that great, the race itself is incredible. I met some incredible people and saw some of the most beautiful race cars I've seen in my life — like the XJR 9 Castrol Racing Jaguar and the Porsche 962. Guys that have dominated the race include historic drivers like Al Holbert, Derek Bell, Al Unser Sr. and Jr., John Andretti (who was on a winning team in 1989), the great Hurley Haywood, Peter Gregg, Bobby Rahal, A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney and so many others.

Along with those names, don't forget the manufacturers that have been part of this event: Nissan, Toyota, Chevrolet, Ford, Jaguar, Porsche, Pontiac, Ferrari, Lexus ... it's a real diverse race with a whole bunch of drivers that come from all different types of series and they all come together for the 24-hour race. It's fun to watch and I'm glad I've been a part of it.

My brother Michael and I have talked about possibly getting a Lexus and going down there to do it sometime, but we've had too many fires to start another one right now. I love watching it and I am glad that SPEED is covering it.

Every once in a while people mention 1983 and say my name, and that's gratifying.