Racing for the Long Haul
Liz Halliday of Telesis Intersport Racing
By Kate Shaw
Photos © Craig Elliott
TORONTO (January 5, 2006) – Liz Halliday began racing at 16 years old, after working with her father who was involved with the SCCA, and like David Brabham, once she began, she wished she had started sooner. “I was inspired by my dad,” she said in a recent interview, “and now that he can’t drive anymore, I’ve become a part of his racing career!” But don’t think that ‘late start’ means a thing; Liz takes on every challenge she’s offered and competes her heart out every time. And she doesn’t shirk the big challenges either. She proved that in 2003 when she took on the Bathurst 24.

“I had some experience in endurance racing prior to my entry in the Bathurst,” she explained. “I had done an LMES six hour race and a 6 hour race at Spa, which is a very tough track. Ian Donaldson, who had driven the Bathurst before and has always been helpful to me in my racing career, got me the drive with himself and his son, and we came seventh at the end of the day, which I didn’t realize was so significant until after I’d done it!” Although Liz had driven a Porsche Cup car previous to her Bathurst adventure, that race was her first time in a GT3-RSR which is quite a different animal. “I went from a lower horsepower car with ABS to a much more powerful car with no ABS,” she said, “which was quite a learning curve! We had some problems with the car and the weather was awful, but we finished well and it was the most incredible circuit I’ve ever driven. I loved it after one go!”

Having showed to herself and the racing community her prowess over 24 hours, Liz went on to complete two other significant 24 hours races: the FIA GT Spa 24 Hours (with the Lister Storm GT1 car as part of the FIA GT Championship with the Factory Lister Storm team) and the 24 Hours of Le Mans (with Telesis Intersport Racing). (She has driven a GT car in the Grand Am series but has yet to do the 24 Hours of Daytona, and hopes to add that race to her C.V. one day.) Of Spa and Le Mans, she considers Spa the more difficult although both races were “awesome.” “Spa is much harder on you physically than Le Mans,” she explained. “You are full out all the time and you don’t get much of a chance to rest. The track is also much more crowded and much darker at night than Le Mans! At Le Mans there’s less panic to get the corners, and much less traffic. A lap at Spa in a ‘big car’ will average 2.16; at Le Mans a similar lap will take you 3.55. So although Le Mans does have plenty of challenges, I would call Spa the “Big Boy Race” of the 24 hour genre.”

That’s not to say anything was lacking at Le Mans, which Liz ran for the first time in 2005 with her current team, Telesis Intersport Racing. “I never attended Le Mans as a spectator,” she said, “so 2005 was my first visit to the circuit – although of course I had watched it on television. And I loved it, both on and off the track! The crowds were enormous and very attentive – in fact, sometimes they were too attentive and it was difficult to get from the car to dinner, with the hordes of people who stopped me wanting autographs and photos! But I very much enjoyed the attention and the press, and especially the fact that my entire family came to watch me race, even my 87 year old Grandfather flew all the way from California for the event. When I went through slow corners at night I had a chance to notice the camera flashes and the campfires, and I always wondered if my family was at that corner as I went around.” Liz loves to drive at night, although she said at Spa it was much more difficult than it was at Le Mans. Intersport retired, as it happened, from a four-lap lead in LMP-2 at 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning at Le Mans, due to valve train problems, but the car was a dream to drive until that point and there was not a single problem with the car until that point. The team is looking forward to another shot at the LMP2 podium in 2006, when Liz will again be joining them.

During her very busy 2005 season, Liz completed five ALMS races with the team, and the most exciting of these was arguably the Road America round when the car caught fire, an event guaranteed to make the highlight reels for the season. “I had no idea the car was on fire,” she said. “I had noticed the smoke and thought it was an electrical fire, but the next thing I knew the crew were shouting at me, ‘the car is on fire, you have to get out now!’” She brought the car into the pits and jumped out to find the fire fully engaged (later investigation revealed the fire was caused when the fuel filter split) – but then because the pit lane was uphill, the burning car began to roll back onto the track! “It was pure instinct that drove me to jump back and stop the car,” she admitted. “I never even thought that the car might explode – that never occurred to me at all – I only thought I had to get it stopped before it caused anybody trouble on the track.” That is sports car talk for ‘a NASCAR style pile-up” which surely would have occurred had her instincts not been so well honed! As it was, she got the car off the track and stopped as the fire marshals rushed up to extinguish the flames – and the next race she and Clint drove that same car to a win at Mosport. And to Liz that is not a heroic action – that is just what had to be done.

Because she’s driven in both GT and LMP cars now, I asked her if she had any thoughts on the issue of four classes of cars on the track at once with such differences in their speed, each intent on running his own race. In her own case she didn’t find it difficult in either aspect. “The closing speed is so fast in an LMP car,” she explained, “that the GT cars really don’t present much of an obstacle. It’s the GT1 cars, with so much more speed, that cause the difficulties.” There was the matter of a Maserati Corsa at Petit Le Mans, for example.

“I came over the hill,” she recounted, “and there was the Maserati, spinning right in front of me! I was fortunate that I didn’t hit him any harder and we had little damage – I went right into the pits and the crew yelled at me ‘why are you coming in?’ I pointed out to them that for one thing I had just totally clobbered this Maserati!” But from her there was not the usual complaint about the actions of other drivers; she shrugged, laughed, and concluded, “Live and learn!”

Telesis Intersport, whose driver Clint Field became the youngest ALMS champion ever in 2005, has rewarded Liz Halliday’s hard work in 2005 with a full time racing seat for 2006, which will be the first time she has focused solely on one racing series. Liz will maintain her residence in the UK during the season, but will be present for all testing and racing during the year. “The commute will still be a little difficult,” she agreed, “but concentrating on only one series will make it easier on me as I will not have to change cars and therefore my mindset as I go from one series to another.” The team has already had one testing session at Sebring before Christmas, and four others are scheduled during the year, the next another Sebring outing at the end of January.

“Intersport is a great team,” Liz said unequivocally, “and both Clint and John have been enormously helpful to me as I learned the tracks and got comfortable in the car. It was an exciting experience in 2005 and I am very much looking forward to more of the same in 2006.” One of the advantages of doing a full season in the ALMS, she recounted, is that her family will be able to, and intents to, attend each and every race in which she runs!

In case you were wondering, Intersport in general and her team-mate in particular have made nothing of ‘the girl thing.’ “I am not far off Clint’s pace,” she said with a laugh, “and it has not come up at all. I suppose if I were much slower than he, perhaps something might have been said!” That’s the way it works in racing – prove you can do the job, and get on with it. Who knows, one day perhaps Liz and Clint will team up to run the Bathurst 24 together!

Meanwhile we can all look forward to an exciting 2006 as Telesis Intersport Racing and Liz Halliday take to an ALMS track in search of another championship. Look for her when they visit an ALMS track near you.