Liz Halliday readies for sophomore year at Le Mans
By Kate Shaw
Photos courtesy Keith Rizzo
LA SARTHE, France (June 1, 2006) — It’s that time again when all the best sports car drivers and teams gather at Le Mans to duke it out for top honours in the 24 Hours du Mans. Intersport Racing’s intrepid team of Liz Halliday, Clint Field and Duncan Dayton return to the hunt in 2006 in a bid to capture the P2 class victory they came so close to winning last year. Halliday very much enjoyed her first outing at Le Mans, and she’s ready to return. “It was truly amazing,” she recalls. “Really, the most spectacular event I have ever been a part of! I remember the awe of taking to the track for the first time and thinking Wow, I’m actually here! The fans were incredible. It was unbelievable to be around hundreds of thousands of people who had come to watch the race. I can’t wait to get there again.”

Halliday and Field, 2006 P2 champions in the American Le Mans Series (he the youngest champion, she the first woman champion), were well prepared for the race in 2005, but Halliday believes they have learned a lot that will help them this year, and that the car has been handled too. “I think we were a strong team last year,” says Halliday, “but since then, we’ve had more time to get to know the car and ARE have done more work on the engine reliability as well, so in theory we are even better prepared this year than we were last.” Of course she has more experience this year, as the team come off three straight ALMS podium finishes, two of them victories over the toughest opposition in the P2 field, the Penske Porsche Spyders. (“We have a knack,” said Field with masterful modesty, “of bringing the car home.”) Most significant, Halliday believes, was the 12 Hours of Sebring victory, as the car ran ‘almost flawlessly’ for the 12 hours on a bumpy and difficult track both in daylight and in darkness.

Preparation for Le Mans, says Halliday, is a difficult and challenging exercise for the drivers who will be spending three or four hours at a time under changing and frequently challenging conditions. Mental fitness is just as important as physical fitness, as the 24 Hours du Mans is broadcast world-wide and the pressure on drivers and teams alike to do well and get to the finish is significant. “You need to have a lot of endurance fitness,” explains Halliday, “as well as neck and upper body strength.” Add to that expectations of reliability (for both car and drivers), consistency, speed without too many risks, and a good race strategy that each member of the team can identify with and in which his or her responsibilities and actions are clearly defined while leaving room for initiative of the right kind leading of course to victory. And the competition in P2 class is always keen. “I think our main competitors,” she says, “will be the RML car which won last year; the Belmondo cars, as they tend to be very reliable. But there are many more competitors this year we’ll need to be wary of too, such as Synergy, Rollcentre, and Binne.”

Halliday leaves for France on June 11, the Sunday before the race, to give herself maximum time (working around scrutineering Monday and Tuesday) to settle in before driving duties start on Wednesday.