Sascha Maassen - Rolex 24

Sascha Maassen's Rolex 24 At Daytona race was thwarted by mechanical and
electrical gremlins. Maassen, of Raeren, Belgium, shared driving duty in the
No. 39 Cheever Racing Porsche-powered Crawford with Eddie Cheever of
Indianapolis, Emmanuel Collard of Champs-sur-Marne, France, and Christian
Fittipaldi of Key Biscayne, Fla.

 

Fittipaldi qualified the car 13th on the 70-car grid, with a lap of one
minute 44.890 seconds on the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway
infield road course in Daytona Beach, Fla. He drove the first stint of the
race, followed by Maassen, Collard and Fittipaldi.

 

The drivers had moved up to third place when Maassen stopped in the
horseshoe turn in the infield at 10h20. He was towed to the garage, where
the team replaced a gear cluster and transaxle. He returned to the track
eight laps down.

 

Collard also encountered problems in the 17th hour, caused by a short in an
electrical wiring harness. The drivers persevered to finish 14th in the
Daytona Prototype class, 24th overall.

 

"We had a good start and we were on the highest position, P3 [position 3],
which was promising. In lap time, we were pretty close to the quickest and
our car had the potential to do well, maybe a top-five finish," Maassen
said. "Then we had a gearbox problem that dropped us down a lot because we
didn't have a spare at that time. We lost almost two hours. We had no big
further problems, but one big problem is enough, I think."

 

Maassen will return next year, hoping to top the impressive international
entry:

 

"Victory is always a challenge, but this is one of the biggest races I'm in.
You're fighting with guys from all over the world – the best racing drivers
– and it's a lot of fun. So I want to do it again. And I want to beat them
next time!"

 

– sascha-maassen.de – 

 

 
Sylvia Proudfoot
HYPERLINK "mailto:sylvia@spurcom.ca"sylvia@spurcom.ca
403 287 3945