Motor Racing / Shav Glick : 24 Hours of Daytona Is First Distance Try for Brabham and Car

Can a race car that has been unbeatable at up to 3 hours be unbeatable for 24?

That is the question facing the Nissan ZX-Turbo as the El Segundo-based Electromotive Engineering team prepares the red, white and blue machine for its first long-distance test--the 24 Hours of Daytona--which starts its twice-around-the-clock run Saturday in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Geoff Brabham, with help at times from John Morton and Tom Gloy, won 10 of 12 GTP races last year, including a record 8 in a row against the powerful Porsches and Jaguars of the International Motor Sports Assn. and won the IMSA driving championship.

The total time Brabham drove the Nissan during its 8-race winning streak, however, was only 20 hours 6 minutes.

“There’s really no way to know if you can last 24 hours until you do it,” Brabham said. “The team logged a lot of information on parts performances and took notice of what lasted and what didn’t. Since our last race last year, we’ve concentrated on strengthening what we felt were our weaker points.”

Last year, when R.W. (Kas) Kastner, Nissan’s director of racing, put together his team, he had no idea the powerful prototype car built by former racing champion Don Devendorf, a Hughes engineering analyst, would be so successful so soon. Kastner elected to skip the 2 early-season distance races, the Sunbank 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Even so, Nissan finished only a point behind Porsche in the manufacturers standings, Porsche winning in the final race at Del Mar, where Brabham crashed on the slippery surface.

“It was a tribute to Geoff and our guys that we came that close,” Kastner said. “In most races, we had a lone Nissan against an army of Porsches. This year, though, we’re not giving anything away. We’re going all out in every race with two outstanding drivers.”

Chip Robinson, who won the 1987 IMSA Camel GT championship while driving a Porsche 962 with Al Holbert’s team, will join Brabham as a Nissan team driver. They will team up for the longer races, such as Daytona and Sebring, and will each have a car for the shorter events.

“Robinson ran an entire shift in the car last week at Willow Springs, and his times were right where we’d like them.” Kastner said.

Robinson also brings some endurance experience to the team.

Despite a 16-year international racing career that includes 7 Indy 500s and championship seasons in Formula II, Super Vee, Can-Am and IMSA Camel GT, Daytona will be Brabham’s first endurance race.

Robinson, on the other hand, was a member of the winning Daytona 24-hour team in 1987 with Holbert, Derek Bell and Al Unser Jr. Robinson also won a 3-hour GT race at Daytona in 1986 while driving a Jaguar with Bob Tullius.

“I’ll just have to play it by ear, I guess,” Brabham said. “I know you can’t let down at anytime. The Jaguar won last year after it had been 8 laps down. I don’t expect the Jags or the Porsches to take it easy, so I imagine we’ll be running as hard as we can the whole race.”

The third Nissan driver will be Arie Luyendyk, veteran Indy car driver, with Michael Roe as a backup.

Jaguar will have three cars at Daytona, splitting up last year’s winning combination of Raul Boesel of Brazil, Martin Brundle of England and John Nielsen of Denmark. Boesel will drive with American Davy Jones and Holland’s Jan Lammers, and Nielsen will be with American Price Cobb and England’s Andy Wallace. The third Jag will have Derek Daly of Ireland, Martin Donnelly of England and Patrick Tambay of France.

Brundle left the team to pursue a Formula One career.

The Porsche phalanx will be led by the newly formed 2-car team directed by Jim Busby of Laguna Beach that includes 2-time winners Derek Bell and Bob Wolleck, plus Mario, Michael and John Andretti.

“We’re the new kids on the block, facing guys who are supposed to be the toughest kids on the block,” Kastner said. “We’ll run our race, at our pace and see how our lap times measure up to theirs. If they can beat us, so be it, but that’s how we felt last year, too, and did we give them a surprise.”

A second Southern California-based Japanese team will also make its 24-hour debut at Daytona but not quite in the manner team manager Dan Gurney hoped for his All-American Racers entry.

Gurney, who won the first race on Daytona’s 3.56-mile road course in 1962 driving a Ford-powered Lotus 19, hoped to unveil his newest creation, a turbocharged Toyota GTP car, but it isn’t ready.

Instead of being at Daytona, it will be at Willow Springs on Friday, being put through what Gurney hopes will be its final tests by Juan Manuel Fangio III, a nephew of the 5-time world champion from Argentina.

“Reluctantly, we had to make a decision not to race the GTP at Daytona because, for one thing, we had no spare parts and you need plenty of spares when you tackle a 24-hour race,” Gurney said.

“We will have our Group C car there, however, and we hope to learn a lot from it. The engine is the same one we’ll be running in the new car, so we hope to get some good input.”

The Group C Toyota has been campaigned in distance races in Japan and Europe, including last year’s 24 Hours of LeMans, in which it finished 12th.

After being refitted to IMSA rule specifications in Gurney’s Santa Ana shop, it will be driven at Daytona by Chris Cord of Beverly Hills, Drake Olson of Bridgewater, Conn., and Steve Bren of Irvine.

A Gurney-prepared Toyota Celica driven by Cord won the GTO championship in 1987.

“Toyota and I have successfully worked our way through the ranks of IMSA,” Gurney said. “I feel as if GTU was primary school, GTO was high school and now, with GTP, we’ve hit the university level.”

If Fangio’s tests go as expected, the new Toyota will make its debut March 5 in the Miami Grand Prix, a 3-hour street race. Fangio, Willy T. Ribbs of San Jose and Rocky Moran of Pasadena will do the driving.

DRAG RACING--Time trials for the 29th annual Chief Auto Parts Winternationals will start today at Pomona Raceway, at the L. A. County Fairplex, and will continue Friday and Saturday. Final eliminations in the $893,400 event, first of an 18-race National Hot Rod Assn. season, will start Sunday at 11 a.m. More than 500 drivers in 9 classes will open their bids for more than $1 million in season-ending Winston bonus awards.

COPPER CLASSIC--Three of the four winningest drivers in United States Auto Club history--A. J. Foyt, Rich Vogler and Gary Bettenhausen--will compete in the $165,000 Skoal Bandit Copper World Classic this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway. Main events will be run Sunday for stock cars, midgets, supermodifieds and Silver Crown championship cars.

MOTOCROSS--The second race in Goat Breker’s California Winter Series will be held Sunday At Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino. World 125cc champion Jean-Michel Bayle of France won the opener last month at Perris Raceway.

SPORTS CARS--The late Al Holbert’s car number, 14, will be retired from International Motor Sports Assn. competition, during ceremonies at this weekend’s 24-hour race at Daytona Beach. Holbert, 41 when he was killed in an air accident last September, won 49 IMSA races, more than any other driver, and 5 IMSA championships, in 1976, 1977, 1983, 1985 and 1986.

IROC--Two champions out of the past, Foyt and Richard Petty, have been named to drive in the International Race of Champions. The 4-race series in identically-prepared Chevrolet Camaros, will start Feb. 17 at Daytona International Speedway. The 12-driver field will be filled with sports car drivers Hurley Haywood, Geoff Brabham and Scott Pruett, plus stock car driver Terry Labonte.

OFF-ROAD--The Miller High Life Off-Road Challenge will open a 5-race series Sunday at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino--the opposite side of the facility from the motocross site.