Jeff's
Viewpoint
Daytona International
Speedway
November 9,
2002
"Grand American
Cup season finale- 6hr enduro"
Jeff
Pabst returned to his roots this past weekend with a ride in the "Grand
American Cup" series,
formerly
"Motorola Cup", driving the Istook-Aines Motorsport Group's Audi
S4 bi-turbo. It was
Jeff's
first visit to the famed NASCAR facility and it was eagerly anticipated
by his many fans
and
colleagues. When talking with team owner-driver Don Istook of Fort Worth
Texas upon
arrival
at the track, Jeff stated: "The car was performing tremendously but shortly
after
starting
into the first test session Thursday, Alex had the car catch fire
due to a mechanical failure "
Co-driver
Alex Lince of Bogota Columbia , had to bail out of the strickened Audi
on
his third lap of practice and watched helplessly as safety crews expelled
3 fire bottles
into
the inferno which began to consume the car. thankfully Alex was uninjured
and the
car
was salvageable. The weekend ahead looked somewhat dismal,
but the Istook/Aines
crew
dug deep and spent the next 10 hours making repairs to the "Silver Bullet"
and
was
able to make practice runs Friday and qualified the car Saturday.
The car though,
was
not performing at it's best due to electrical component damaged suffered
in the fire.
Problems
kept plaguing the team right up until racetime. Don Istook was starting
driver
while
Jeff took the checkered flag, with many stops in between for maintenance,
repairs
and
driver changes. Jeff had only one close call during the race as to
quote Jeff,
"
I was holding my line on the infield when a Porsche "driver"
had brain fade and
locked
up all four's and slid right into my left front wheel!" this caused
a lengthy couple
of
stops for the Istook team to repair damage and re-align the car.
With
all the adversities of the weekend the team did finish a 7th in class for
GSII, though a
win
or podium finish was entirely possible. Jeff commented on the track
saying " At first,
the
feeling of the high banking was strange and required a different
technique than I'm
used
to. But after no time at all I was totally comfortable and only needed
more speed from
the
car which unfortunately was just not possible this weekend. I hope to go
there again
sometime
to give it another shot!"