Border Telegraph | Sport | Driver Robin has American dream

Friday, 5th December, 2008

Published: Wednesday, 25th January, 2006 10:02

Driver Robin has American dream

By Border Telegraph Sport

BORDERER Robin Liddell begins his bid for Grand American Rolex GT Series title honours when the Scotsman contests the season-opening “blue riband” race of the year this weekend.

Liddell, 32 next month, contests the 44th Rolex 24 Hours at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida.

Liddell races a brand new Tafel Racing NEC Porsche 997 in the annual sports car “classic” with Wolf Henzler, a German Robin will share with in the normal, shorter races this year, plus Americans Johannes van Overbeek and Graham Rahal.

Robin has contested this race on two previous occasions having netted a GT class win - an amazing second overall - in 2004.

“I drove for the same Tafel team last year and only lost out on third in class when we were forced to pit on the very last lap for fuel,” commented Liddell who ultimately finished fourth in the GT category.

“I tested the new Porsche at Daytona earlier this month and everything went very well. We set the fastest time in our class which is not hugely important for a 24 hour race except that we now know we are fast enough.

“More detail changes will have been made by the team between then and now so we should be even better prepared.”

A massive 70-plus car entry is expected to line up for the famous Rolex-sponsored Daytona race at 5pm (GMT) on Saturday afternoon, a race which attracts a mixed variety of drivers and which can also be affected by adverse weather.

Robin added: “With over 70 cars on the 3.6-mile track, traffic plays a big factor in the proceedings - you are constantly overtaking slower cars and being overtaken by faster ones. While there are some very, very experienced drivers in the field there are some that do not have much experience and are still blowing the winter cobwebs away let’s say, so this can be difficult to deal with at times.

“Florida is generally a very pleasant place to be in January but two years ago it rained for 19 hours and visibility was appalling. I expect the competition to be fierce in both our GT class and the faster Daytona Prototype field classes.”

Social Bookmarking What are these?