1-Feb-2010 – CoRe Racing fairs well in the iRacing Rolex 2.4 at Daytona.

The 2010 Rolex 2.4 became one, if not the largest, single event turnout in iRacing history. Over 950 drivers showed up for the 2.4 hour race, which featured the Riley MkXX Daytona Prototype at Daytona International Speedway.

During qualifying week, it was clear that the Pro Series drivers would have the experience needed to put their Riley Prototypes on pole. Road Pro Series Champion, Richard Towler, put his car on pole with a 1:37.372. CoRe Racing’s Klaus Kivekäs would qualify 4th of the 885 qualifiers with a 1:37.769, the fastest of the CoRe drivers.

When the green flag dropped Klaus Kivekäs and Pat Dotson found themselves in split 1, starting 4th and 15th respectfully. Klaus dodged some early race incidents, including the Purdy and Alfalla incident early in the race, missing the crash by literally inches. This, combined with being held up in the early stage of the race meant that by the time he could get into podium position the leaders were simply too far ahead. Regardless of which, Klaus’s 3rd place finish is a very strong one considering it was behind the race winner Richard Towler, and 2nd place finisher Jeffery Rietveld. Pat would endure some mid-race difficulties but some how miraculously manged to rally back late in the race to take a very strong 12th place finish.*

CoRe also had two drivers participating in split two. Nolan Scott and Kenneth O’Keefe would start 8th and 9th behind an old Live for Speed rival, David Williams from My3id Gaming, who would start from pole. David showed a strong pace, but unfortunately timed out after leading 18 laps. This would hand the lead over to Nolan, and he would sail to trouble free victory, leading 60 of the 90 race laps. Kenneth didn’t have it so easy, and was forced to battle Ville Niemi for the runner up position. Kenneth would run in 3rd position pressuring Ville for nearly the entire race. Ville finally made a mistake in the final third of the race, and Kenneth would bring the car home for a strong 2nd place finish, nearly 15 seconds ahead of 3rd.

Long time CoRe member and Live for Speed veteran, Phil Diaz, used this event to make his return to the iRacing simulation after a long five month hiatus. Phil started the race in 3rd position of the 3rd split, a race which turned out to be the closest of all the 2.4 hour splits. It was so close in fact that the top 3 drivers were separated by less than 3 seconds, neglecting the pit stop offsets, for nearly a 60 lap period. Phil and Jaroslav Honzik stretched the battle right down to the end of the race. Phil trailed Jaroslav by under half a second in the closing laps, but the combination of lapped traffic issues and a strong pace from Jaroslav’s meant Phil would have to settle for a 2nd place finish, only 1.8 seconds behind 1st.

Lastly, Justin Kirby showed an amazingly strong pace. Justin lead 26 laps in his split, and showed that he was one of the fastest drivers in his race… Unfortunately, Justin was collected in an incident with a lapped car in the bus stop chicane. This ended his race, but showed that he had what it takes to run up front.

In summary, it was a great day for CoRe Racing and we are very happy about our performance. We want to thank the iRacing administration for putting together such a great event and we eagerly await next year’s Rolex 2.4.

Official iRacing report: http://www.inracingnews.com/iracing-news/24-x-24-fun/