If you can get past the traffic on the ever-clogged highways, there are a few scenic drives in Connecticut that make up for that bumper-to-bumper crawl. Driving up Route 53 to Danbury is one of them. Driving north to Litchfield along Route 7, once past Danbury, is another. Once you’re past the town of Litchfield, the rolling hills and curving roads can lead you to the historic Limerock racetrack, known for its classic car races and home to a specialized racecar driving school.
But Limerock is not the only nexus for the racecar world. Just past the Danbury Municipal airport, drive along the road that circles around the airport runways, and you’ll find Highcroft Racing, home of the current number one LeMans racing team in the fresh American LeMans circuit. Yeah, that Highcroft racing, featuring this year’s LeMans 24 winner, driver David Brabham. Highcroft was founded by Duncan Dayton, himself a former racecar driver.
LeMans racing, for the uninitiated, is best described as a 24-hour grueling race of survival and is the oldest endurance race in the world. Think Steve McQueen, the movie, the roaring engines, open cockpit, bare wheels, and speed. The cars, which have evolved into high-tech machinery, still have that old-school charm.
The American LeMans, in the spirit of LeMans, is a series of endurance and sprint races, pitting four different classes of cars that simultaneously compete and rack up scores. The difference in the classes deals with the technical attributes of the cars, the P series focusing on Formula One style open cockpit race cars, and the GT, or Grand Touring series, focusing on familiar street legal versions of sports cars. In all cases, the cars are the melding of technology and reliability, pitting not just the fastest cars in the world, but the fastest cars that can survive the race itself. No easy feat considering the specialized rules regarding pit stops.
On one of the rare sunny weekends this past summer, July 18, 2009, Limerock race track is hosted the Northeast ALMS race, which was won last year by the home state racing team of Patron Highcroft. With David Brabham at the wheel, hopes were high for team Patron Highcroft. During the qualifying laps, Patron Highcroft hosted a reception to kick off the race weekend, but more importantly, highlighted a unique sponsorship. Most of the time, when there’s talk of sponsorship in racing, it’s some corporate entity sponsoring the race team. But Patron Highcroft reversed the sponsor model by instead sponsoring Malaria No More.
If Malaria No More sounds familiar, you may remember the innovative race on Twitter between Ashton Kutcher and CNN. There, the race was to prove who could get to one million Twitter followers the fastest. The bet was for the winner to donate 10,000 bednets and the loser 1,000 through Malaria No More for World Malaria Day, April 25, 2009. Kutcher won the Twitter race, but the Malaria No More team won a high-profile spot on the media landscape. One that team Patron Highcroft enhances.
Malaria No More has a daunting mission: to eliminate Malaria in Africa. Malaria has seen a resurgence in Africa due to climate change, drug resistance, and the emergence of insecticide-resistant mosquito strains.
Over 175 million people get infected in Africa each year, with young children the most threatened. Here is where a simple $5 tent can mean the difference between life and death. The tents that Malaria No More purchases and distributes in Africa are treated with a special insecticide that kills the mosquitoes that land on them, as well as protecting the occupants from being bitten as they sleep. And with a five-year life span, the most vulnerable children are protected.
Malaria No More is headed by Scott Case, whose name may be familiar to you from another Connecticut-based business called Priceline. The partnership between Patron Highcroft and Malaria No More owes itself not to the high-tech networking, but to a friendship developed by the wives of Scott Case and Brian MacDonald, who were both active in a Wilton PTA. From there, a family friendship led to the innovative sponsorship of Case’s current passion and the world of high-tech racing. MacDonald is the Chief Operating Officer of Highcroft.
The technology involved in racing LeMans is the most cutting-edge in the world. All the innovations that eventually make it to the showroom get trialed on the track. From fuel mixtures, suspensions, tires, you name it. The art of LeMans racing isn’t how fast the cars can go, but how they can go fast and endure punishing G force, the heat off the track, and the pressure of high-speed maneuvers.
For Patron Highcroft, this means bringing in top talent. The success of the racing team has led to the growth of the racing headquarters. The building, formerly housed the world’s largest turntable manufacturer, Macton Corp. Not the kind of turntables that you once listened to vinyl LPs on, but the massive, slow-turn platforms that have graced the top of tall buildings, featuring panoramic view restaurants or showcasing automobiles at trade shows. The round-shaped building made a perfect home for a race team, and the entrance hall is filled with classic LeMans cars, including one that slowly rotates on one of the turntables, once manufactured in the building.
Now the polished concrete floors are divided between an office filled with trophies and the workshop where cars are painstakingly maintained. While computers dominate the engine tuning, the bulk of the car assembly is old-fashioned struts, wheels, shell, tires, and brake pads. As has become standard in the highly competitive race world, the engine itself is engineered by the engine sponsor, in this case, Acura. The Acura team keeps the engine specs and calibrations totally secret, even from Team Patron Highcroft. That even extends to keeping the steering wheel under wraps until just before the race.
Highcroft has been luring top engineering talent to join Highcroft Racing, from Stanford and MIT. The young engineers are advancing automotive technology. In 10 years, MacDonald anticipates that the LeMans racing world will be running hybrid engines and racing with a form of diesel fuel. In Europe, there is already a line of performance diesel fuel available to the general public. With its lower fuel consumption/burning rate, European cars average more miles to the gallon than their gasoline-burning counterparts. And cleanly too. The movement towards green racing is cutting edge.
With an eye on claiming victory in the race again, this year’s race is also drumming up awareness and financial support for ending malaria. In an innovative twist to changing the world, Team Patron Highcroft is sponsoring miles for malaria, donating $5 each for every mile raced.
On July 16, 2009, the founder of AMLS Dr. Panoz, also pledged $5 for every mile raced.
