Tearing Up the Script

No battle plan survives first contact with an enemy. Same goes for TUDOR Championship race strategies. And if you can't adapt, you lose.

Here's a dirty little secret found in endurance series such as IMSA's TUDOR United SportsCar Championship: Race strategy might be romanticized as a high-speed game of chess being played by the finest tactical minds, but even the best in the business will concede that it's closer to playing a game of checkers while blindfolded.

In the days leading up to an event, teams will spend hours plotting their version of the perfect strategy to beat the opposition, but once the green flag waves, those plans are often forgotten. Depending on the length of the race, strategists can look forward to upwards of 24 hours of reactive moves, where scripts don't apply.

It's a job where timing is crucial, improvisational skills essential, and one wrong call or unexpected caution can turn success into agonizing failure.

"Every job on a racing team is pressure-packed, and most of them involve routines by the time you get to the race," says Mike O'Gara, team manager for Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford EcoBoost, racing in the Prototype class. "Race strategy is the total opposite. You can control pretty much everything you do in practice and qualifying, but come the race, you're basically trying to control something that's not yours to control. Not with 30-plus cars and multiple classes around you."

Most teams start by collating data, then scripting their strategy plans before any particular event gets underway. Track length also plays a major role in how pre-race strategy plans are formed.

"A lot of it depends on the lap length and thinking about what would happen if you came into the pits," says Riley Technologies' Bill Riley, who oversees Ben Keating's Dodge Viper GT Daytona program. "For example, a short track like Lime Rock would be a completely different strategy than a long one like Road America, because if you come in under green at Lime Rock, you're going a lap down, no matter what you do. And at some tracks, the length of pit lane itself can alter your willingness to pit or stay out."

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