- December 23, 2024
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Team London driver Bobby Kennedy watches the beginning of the ChampCar race at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
ChampCar is a racing series that offers an affordable way to race at professional tracks across the United States including Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Crew chief Toby Keppel checks the team's status on Race Monitor during the ChampCar race at Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Team London drivers Tommy Byrne (left) and Bobby Kennedy wait their turn to drive. The ChampCar Endurance Race is 14 hours long with each team having multiple drivers. Photo by Michele Meyers
Pit stop for Team London. Team owner Carl Goutell swaps places with driver Jimmy Bayles. Photo by Michele Meyers
Crew chief Toby Keppel works on the driver lineup stats in the pit at the ChampCar 14-hour Endurance Race at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Team London crew member Fire Bottle Matt and owner Carl Goutell goofing around in the pit during the ChampCar race at Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Tommy Byrne puts on his balaclava, Hans device and Bell helmet in preparation for his second stint driving in the ChamCar 14-hour Endurance Race. Photo by Michele Meyers
Driver Tommy Byrne, Bobby Kennedy and Toby Keppel prepare for the next pit stop during the ChampCar 14-hour Endurance Race at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Driver Tommy Byrne dives down on the inside during the ChamCar 14-hour Endurance Race at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Carl Goutell makes some last minute pit stop adjustments as the Team London car heads back out on the track at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Crew chief Toby Keppel watches as the Team London BMW e34 passes during the ChampCar 14-hour Endurance Race at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Race car driver Bobby Kennedy relaxes in the pit before his second stint in the ChampCar 14-hour Endurance Race at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
ChampCar timing crew not only checks the timing equipment on each car but makes sure there are no safety issues. Photo by Michele Meyers
Chris Camerote poses as she holds the pit number sign for a team during the ChampCar 14-hour Endurance Race. Photo by Michele Meyers
Crew chief Toby Keppel holds the pit number for driver Jimmy Bayles during the ChampCar 14-hour endurance race at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Toby Keppel checks the car as Bobby Kennedy holds driver Tommy Byrne's glasses and Jimmy Bayles adjusts the net during a pit stop in the ChampCar 14-hour Endurance Race at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
Carl Goutell (left), Jimmy Bayles and Toby Keppel discuss the issues Bayles had while driving the car in the ChampCar 14-hour Endurance Race at the Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Michele Meyers
ChampCars don't always make it to the end of a 14 hour race. Photo by Michele Meyers
Race car driver Bobby Kennedy says his favorite time to drive in the ChampCar race at the Daytona International Speedway is at night. Photo by Michele Meyers
After the race, Tommy Byrne and Toby Keppel check the wear on the Cooper tires that were given to them for the race. Photo by Michele Meyers
Every year, cars of all shapes and sizes can be seen rolling up to the Daytona International Speedway for the ChampCar 14-hour Endurance Race. Sporting a variety of graffiti or gleaming from a professional paint job, they arrive in droves by trailer or driver in preparation for a day of competition, camaraderie and good old-fashioned racing.
This year was no different. Teams began arriving at the track on load-in day during the week prior to the race, held on Saturday, April 1. It was a record-breaking event with 139 cars originally entered, the most interest in the event in ChampCar history, and 130 cars taking laps which is a record at the speedway.
Bill Strong is the marketing director for ChampCar and is responsible for setting up the cameras for the show that streams live during the races. He started with the company part-time in 2014, running the websites. He went full-time in 2017 when he retired from the University of Virginia where he was the webmaster and handled e-commerce for the bookstore.
“Even though we are a member club and we are just out here for fun, to a lot of these guys, this is their Indy 500, their Daytona 500,” he said. “For them, this is the highest in life they’re going to get when it comes to racing so we want to give them the same show, the same importance as running the Indy or Daytona 500.”
The ChampCar Endurance Series, originally known as the ChumpCar World Series, was founded by John Condren in July 2009 as an effort to make endurance racing affordable. The name was changed in 2017 and an official registered trademark was granted in August 2018, making the series more appealing for corporate sponsors who associated the word “chump” with a negative connotation. The following year, TireRack.com became the series' title sponsor.
Even though we are a member club and we are just out here for fun, to a lot of these guys, this is their Indy 500, their Daytona 500. For them, this is the highest in life they’re going to get when it comes to racing so we want to give them the same show, the same importance as running the Indy or Daytona 500. - Bill Strong, ChampCar Marketing Director
Team owner Carl Goutell knows when it is time to get ready for the ChampCar race when his crew member, Matt Conway, known as "Fire Bottle" Matt, begins calling him every day.
“We love Matt and Matt loves this race and being on our team more than anything,” Goutell said. “He is like an alarm clock. When he starts calling me every day leading up to the race, about a month before, that is when I know it’s time to really get to work on the cars.”
In the fall of 2011, driver instructors Goutell, Peter London, Jimmy Bayles, Squeak and Bobby Kennedy, were standing in a garage at the speedway during a three-day Ferrari event where they rode with drivers to teach them the fine nuances of driving the track and more importantly, not to crash. Someone in the group brought up the topic of the upcoming ChampCar race to be held for the first time in Daytona.
“We talked about it during lunch as we sat on stacks of tires in the garage,” Goutell said. “Liking the format of affordable, we agreed that we should form a team and enter the race. There was just enough enthusiasm from that point to manage to show up for that first race.”
The responsibility of picking the car was left up to Goutell who chose a 1991 BMW 5 Series. They cut as much of the rusting metal off the chassis as they could to make it lighter and ended up placing fourth.
The team kept returning and placing in the top three but could not crack the top spot until Goutell added a second car and some new drivers to the team. In 2015, champion race car driver Tommy Byrne joined the team after meeting Goutell at Squeak Kennedy’s 60th birthday party. They then won two years in a row.
“I started racing again because Carl asked me,” Byrne said. “I’m happy I did. That was the most fun I’d had racing in a long time.”
Ormond Beach resident Bobby Kennedy was 18 when he began racing with the team. At 29, he is the still the youngest but has 21 years of racing experience. His dad Squeak put him in a Bondelero race car at the age of 8 then switched him to quarter midgets shortly after. He is passing down the family's racing legacy to his 5-year-old son Cam who will be training to race quarter midgets for the first time this month.
“I like it because of the laid back atmosphere,” he said. “There's not as much stress but it is competitive. It's nice though because it's not a money game, so you don't have teams outspending you and that's why you're not doing well. It's more about the preparation and strategy and having good drivers that are similar and consistent.”
Goutell renamed his racing crew Team London after longtime friend and teammate Peter London died in a driver coaching accident at the Palm Beach International Raceway in 2019. The team honors him by racing the event every year.
“In 2019, we lost Peter and I almost quit, but all of the other guys were counting on me to bring the cars so I kept coming back,” Goutell said. “The car prep is a lot of work and time and dollars. Every year I question myself, usually about a day or two before the race, and I'll vow to never do this again. Each year I forget my vow.”
This year, Byrne lost fourth gear during his last stint driving. Kennedy jumped in at their final pit stop, excited to finish off with some night racing. Team London was ahead by two laps when the gear box went out with less than an hour left of the race.
“How much longer?” Goutell asked. “We love Daytona. We love racing. We love our friends. We will see.”
