John Potter's column: The pride of a team versus the pride of a person

John Potter, owner and co-driver for IMSA TUDOR Championship GTD class Porsche team Magnus Racing, will be blogging for RACER.com this season.

It's tough to put into words, but one of the biggest personal challenges in both owning the team and being one of the drivers is finding that balance between personal pride and looking after the best interest of the team.

It comes out in weird ways. For example, when it comes to drive time between myself and my teammate, Andy Lally. Obviously Andy has a lot of experience, which means he's both fast and gives great technical feedback. On the other hand, I enjoy driving and obviously get quicker every time I'm behind the wheel so I enjoy seat time at every chance.

It's a tough question... do I argue more seat time for myself to keep it fun and help enhance my part in the program, or put my own needs aside in the interest of getting Andy in and benefitting the program overall.

This was one of those weekends.

The Sahlen's Six Hours at the Glen is a race that I've really wanted to win. I've been racing at this event since 2008 and got a small taste of victory in 2009, when Andy and I won a support race in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (coincidentally, my first professional sports car win).

It was at the "six hour" that Magnus Racing earned their first pole in team history during their debut season in 2010, and we might have even won the race had we not had an alternator failure. In 2012, we were poised for another good day when the car burned to the ground after an electrical fire and we followed it up last year with our first podium.

We also decided to bring in some extra help for the endurance race hiring Sebastian Asch from Germany. Sebastian is not a household name in the U.S., but he has a proven record in Europe and he seemed a good fit for us. It turned out to be a great move as Sebastian acclimated himself well with us. If anything, I felt bad for him as we threw a lot of jokes at him and I'm not sure how much of it connected.

Unfortunately, on Friday evening my weekend changed. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say I had "stomach issues." Bad ones. I was most concerned for Tucker, our crew member who manages the interior of the car and helps us with driver changes, as he would be the one most affected if I had a "moment" with my stomach while driving. Thankfully during Saturday's practice sessions I managed to avoid such a crisis.

But when I woke up on Sunday I wasn't feeling a whole lot better. That, combined with the heat, was a potential recipe for disaster.

I was starting the race knowing that we needed to run for 85 minutes in order to make sure I qualified for points, and with my illness, the perfect situation would have been a caution around the 90-minute mark to come in for a stop.

After the stop came, however, my stomach started to change its tone. I was feeling worse and worse and if you look at my lap times, it started to show. Once we made the minimum drive time things were at their worst and I wasn't sure how long I could go.

This is where the debate comes in with me internally. As much as our team has fun, I take this very seriously and just wasn't sure what the right call was. I knew if we pitted we'd be 30 minutes early if the race stayed green, putting us out of cycle. It would also mean that if a yellow did come out, we might potentially lose a lap due to the time it would take to service the car as the lead pack came around.

I didn't want to let the team down by forcing them into a strategy they didn't want, but I also wasn't sure I could keep the car on the track the way I was feeling. I felt like if I asked to come in early, it might not be seen as "sacking up" and just dealing with it. Basically, I didn't want to be a wuss.

So, again the debate. Is it better to try and "man up" by staying out and possibly risk losing the car if my stomach did give up, or better to compromise my own personal "manhood" reputation by pitting early and ensuring the car was in one piece?

Ultimately, the team's interest prevailed, and we came in at the 90-minute mark. I was out, Sebastian was in, and looking back it made no difference on our eventual third place. It was the right call. However, I'm still disappointed in myself.

Everyone has told me it was the absolute right thing to do in the interest of the team, but I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to be the guy who drove through his problem and pulled a strong double stint, but I'll take my trophy and points instead, I guess.

Regardless, I'm thankful for a great weekend and happy to come home with more hardware and a solid second place in points. We're at the halfway point in the season and it's been great so far.

Mosport will be daunting as it's my first visit, but we'll be ready thanks to the best crew in the business.
-John