The 1988 IMSA season would open with its usual round the clock endurance classic on the high banks of Daytona. For the previous 11 years, victory at Daytona had been claimed by Porsche and ’88 would see 8 962’s aiming to bag the marque a 12th consecutive victory.
Enter Tom Walkinshaw and his pair of TWR prepared Jaguar XJR-9’s. The now iconic Jag would make its debut at the race adorned in the red, white and green of Castrol.
The race would prove to be a flat-out sprint for its entirety, physically draining for those piloting the ground effect laden GTP racers around the bumpy high banks of Daytona and also waring on the cars themselves. The lead #60 Jaguar would suffer an electrical short on its fuel pump in the middle of the night costing it 3 laps.
Facing this deficit the drivers of the #60 – Martin Brundle, Raul Boesel and John Neilsen would have to give it everything to catch up. With its drivers facing exhaustion towards the end of the race TWR put Jan Lammers (driver of the #61 team car) into the #60 to bring the car home a lap clear of the second place Porsche 962.
This piece shows the winning #60 car on the high-banking of Daytona at ‘golden hour’ being stalked by a Porsche 962.
