Scott Pruett: Conversation With A Racing Legend, Pt. One

You know, with myself, and Juan Pablo, and Dario Franchitti, and Memo Rojas, you just keep it up. I mean, just hour after hour after hour, and what’s crazy is when you get to the 12-hour mark and go, “Dang, we’re only half way there.” It’s just amazing. 

And then we have to put up with—like last year was a very difficult race because we saw a lot of rain, we saw dry, we saw fog, and we saw just these ever-changing conditions that you had to adapt for; and everybody just did a fantastic job. 

AA: Now you talk about the 24 Hours of Daytona being the most difficult, I’d like to liken that real quick then with the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Why do you feel Daytona is more difficult—is it because of the fact that there is more darkness? What is it that’s more difficult about Daytona than the 24 Hours of Le Mans; more cars, tougher conditions, what? 

SP: Yeah, I mean I’ve won that race [Le Mans] as well when I went back with Corvette in 2001. We won that race. And so I’ve done both and had a lot of success at both places. 

There’s two things: One, Le Mans is eight miles long, so instead of three-and-a-half miles, the track’s almost three times as long—two-and-a-half without a stretch. And the fact that, you know, you talk about doing that race in June where the amount of darkness is a lot less. So you’re talking about maybe six hours of darkness in comparison to 13 or 14 hours of darkness. And they don’t start as many cars. 

So, on a longer track, not as many cars, and less darkness is how I liken the two. Daytona is significantly more difficult, without question. 

AA: Alright so let’s talk about the difference, just last week, you made a brilliant pass coming off of NASCAR [turn] four at Daytona in the Brumos Porsche 250 to get Alex Gurney, pass him, and win by eight one-hundreds of a second—the closest finish in Grand-Am history. 

Tell us about the difference between the 24 Hours and the 250, not necessarily from the length of race, but from the driving conditions themselves and it as a race. 

SP: It’s 100 percent balls-out racing. I mean from the drop of the green flag you are... 

We have stuff specifically for the 24 Hours. The brakes have changes—a lot bigger brakes, the defroster. A lot of the things that you need for a 24-hour race or there’s a lot of pieces and parts that are different...that add a lot more weight to the car. 

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