Synergy

Victories in endurance races don’t come from one single flying lap. Rather, a driver and team’s ability to string quick lap after lap together, over the course of miles and miles, hour after hour, is what makes the difference between winning a new Rolex watch, and going home with nothing but best wishes for next year.

With this strategy in mind, Synergy Racing is well prepared for Saturday’s 46th running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona. The No. 80 EMC Mechanical Synergy Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup will start from 6th on the GT grid. Heylen was hoping to score more in the session, but will look forward to his third row starting spot after netting a fast lap time 1:51.513 seconds. The recent Champ Car podium visitor will share the driving duties with Damien Faulkner, Lance Arnold, and Mark Greenberg.

The 15-minute qualifying session witnessed forty GT Class cars take to the track with the first seven cars separated by less than one second. The short session with the abundance of cars meant that it wasn’t so much a case of managing the traffic as it was luck in finding good track position.

“I really thought we could be a little bit closer to the front because the car is really good but traffic didn’t play my way and before I could get the time I wanted, the session was done,” said Heylen. “Obviously though it’s a long race, so it’s not crucial where you start, but you always want to be up front! This team has been working really hard and we’re looking forward to getting a good start and keeping a strong pace starting on Saturday.”

The sister No 81 entry of Steve Johnson, Richard Lietz, Robert Doornbos, and Patrick Huisman will starter further arrears after an off-course excursion sent the Synergy Racing crew into top gear to repair the 911 in order to be ready to run on Friday.

“The day didn’t go entirely to plan, but we’ll have both cars ready to go come race time and be ready for a long day and night,” said Synergy Racing principal Cole Scrogham. “Jan did a great job for us, and this is a long race so we are jut focused on being ready with both these cars on Saturday morning.”

The opening 90-minutes of the 46th Rolex 24 At Daytona will get underway at 1:00 PM ET with live coverage on the FOX Network and continues on SPEEDTV with a further 17 hours of live coverage up to the checkered flag.