Thefts mar tradition of souvenir hunting at Rolex 24

Yahoo

29-01-2025

It's a time-honored tradition for fans of racing to take home broken car parts as the ultimate souvenirs, and last weekend's edition of the Rolex 24 At Daytona presented plenty of opportunities for memorabilia hunters to add to their collections.
Brand-new IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship entrant DXDT Racing was a popular source for race-used parts after its Corvette Z06 GT3.R caught fire with Charlie Eastwood onboard the No. 36 GTD entry. The resultant damage forced DXDT out of the race, and with many of the components of the rear-engine car unusable, fans were treated to a bevy of large and burnt bodywork to make their own.
'Unfortunately, I saw a bit of a flame through the second part of the road course and entering Turn 6, and by the time I got on to the banking, the flames were getting bigger,' Eastwood said.
'Thankfully the fire team here are insanely good, and they were at the car before I even got out. We're lucky we still have a car here, based on them, so thank you. They're the best in the business.'
From the trash pile that accumulated in front of DXDT's garage space, fans took a crispy bumper, which left its new owner with soot-covered hands, and another, with possibly the largest piece of memorabilia to carry away, had the Corvette's roasted diffuser to transport out of the facility.
Elsewhere, a fan had a broken brake disc from an unknown source in hand as they walked through the paddock, and leaving the track after the race, another was seen carrying what appeared to be an undamaged LMP2 rear wing element as they exited the Turn 4 tunnel.
Many fans – including this one – obtained their souvenirs with the blessings of the relevant team. Others simply helped themselves. Photo by Marshall Pruett
According to DXDT team manager Bryan Sellers, fans were invited to pick through their damaged Z06 GT3.R components and leave with whatever they wanted. The same can't be said for AO Racing, whose No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 Rawr — Rexy — and its No. 99 ORECA 07 LMP2 entry — Spike — were dealt on-track blows and had a pile of broken parts amass in their garage that fans helped themselves to without permission.
With dozens of teams focused on the 24-hour race, theft-minded attendees have exploited their absence and plundered all manner of parts, tools, and sundries while crews are on pit lane. In planning for IMSA's return in 2026, it wouldn't be a surprise to see the addition of garage-based security staff, either supplied by the track or hired independently by teams, to ensure teams' belongings remain in their possession.
'Don't get me wrong, we love the exposure and the amount of fans that we've gained over the last couple of years, but people generally at the race track, seemed to be way more emboldened than they were five-10 years ago,' AO Racing team principal Gunnar Jeannette told RACER.
'At points in the night, there were people that just walked into our trailer thinking that that was okay. We had a couple of people just wander into our pit box. One guy's in the middle of the pit box, standing there, and I walked up to him and said, 'Hi, excuse me, but who are you with?' And he said, 'Oh, I've got this pit pass, I thought I could just go anywhere.' I was like, 'Sorry, we need to keep this area open for our pit crew to work.' And, he said, 'Oh, okay. Do you have any parts that I could have?' And I just looked at him with a disgusted look on my face, and was like, 'No, man, we're in the middle of a race. That's kind of a ridiculous question to ask.'
'In our situation, the track services dropped off the remnants of Rexy bumper and somebody just walked off with it. They dropped it off in our garage, and all of a sudden it just disappeared. It says a lot about humanity. It's unfortunate because with IMSA, it's great being able to give people access that doesn't exist in other series, but right now, we're absolutely seeing the negative side of that.'
Story originally appeared on Racer