Racing the Lexus RC F GT3 in the Daytona Rolex 24-hour race revs your mind and body to the limit.
Lexus Racing
IT’S 5 P.M. ON A SATURDAY afternoon in late January, and race car driver Jack Hawksworth is in his RV getting ready to go to bed. Approximately 1,000 feet away here on the grounds of Florida’s Daytona International Speedway rages the Rolex 24, the 24-hour endurance race that opens Hawksworth’s seventh season as a Lexus factory racer on the professional motorsports circuit.
Hawksworth has just reached the RV fresh from his first two-hour stint circling the track upwards of 185 mph, and his face is flushed above the neckline of his black fire suit. With roughly 20 hours to go, the 31-year-old Brit is splitting the track time with his two Vasser Sullivan teammates. But for now he’s smiling, projecting grace, and patience despite a sizable stye blossoming on his right eyelid.
Jack Hawksworth, driver of the No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3
Lexus Racing
“I got an eye infection, and then it’s just gotten worse this week,” he says. A week later he’ll confide that the stye blurred his peripheral vision, making it harder to distinguish the racing lines at the famed race track’s first and sixth corners against their white-walled perimeters. But for now, he’s looking forward to eating a couple packets of instant oatmeal, downing some electrolytes and grabbing 90 minutes of shuteye before jumping back into the driver’s seat of the team’s No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 around 9 p.m.
His junior teammate, Ben Barnicoat, stands in the narrow galley of the RV, recently showered and eating a banana in his shorts and racing top. “We eat, sleep, drive, repeat,” the 26-year-old says. He’s also smiling despite this reporter’s intrusion into their small private sanctuary mere hours into their first and longest race of the IMSA Weather Tech SportsCar Championship season.
The No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 has a top speed of 185 MPH.
Lexus Racing
Both drivers appear unruffled and unflappable despite the prospect of the long night and day ahead. We can hear the thunder and crackle of 61 race cars whirling around the speedway, including the one presently driven by their third teammate, Mike Conway. A lot is riding on this season opener, especially for this Lexus team’s second season in the GTD Pro division comprised exclusively of professional drivers, which, unlike the GTD division, uses amateur drivers.
Now in its 61styear, the legendary 24-hour endurance is the one of the top events for the world’s best drivers, who train just as hard as any professional athlete. As the longest race in the U.S., the Rolex 24 is second in terms of prestige in the world only to the 24 Hours of Le Mans and often serves as a feeder for the French race.
Three drivers take two-hour shifts over the 24-hour race grabbing snacks and shuteye when they’re not driving.
Lexus Racing
Daytona’s endurance race, simply put, is designed to be exhausting. Altogether, each team logs about 3,000 miles—an even longer distance than even a cadre of coffee-fueled vacationers would cover during a multi-day drive from Daytona to Los Angeles—but does it at full speed, contending with hairpin turns, elevation changes, and unpredictable weather along the way.
“Endurance athletes—that for me is what a driver is,” Hawksworth says. “You don’t need to lift heavy weights or run 100 meters, but you need to maintain a high heart rate for long periods of time. The more physically fit you are, the better chance you have of making good decisions.”
The drivers train nearly every day during the off-season, which stretches from October through late January, to build a base level of fitness they’ll strive to maintain throughout the 11-race circuit, which stretches across the U.S. from Connecticut’s Lime Rock Park to California’s Laguna Seca Raceway. Four of the events qualify as endurance races, lasting anywhere from six to 24 hours. The other seven races are “sprint races” that typically run for two hours and 40 minutes.
Hawksworth, 31, says the key to success is to avoid frustration and not dwell on mistakes.
Lexus Racing
But it’s the heat—and the Florida humidity—that presents the real challenge at Daytona. The GT3 cars lack air conditioning and open windows, driving the cockpit temperature up to 140 degrees, which can be brutal on a driver wearing a helmet, gloves and full race regalia for two or three hours at a time. The Lexus RC F race car is longer, lower, and more powerful than the street car version. The engine is slightly larger (5.4-liter vs. 5.0-liter), which helps it make north of 500 horsepower, versus 472 horsepower.
A typical training regimen for Hawksworth focuses on high-intensity interval training in the morning—typically 30 seconds on, 15 seconds off doing a bit of everything: assault bike, ski erg, rower, medicine ball throws, battle ropes, and various body weight exercises—followed by a 90- to 120-minute endurance bike ride in the afternoon and neck-strengthening exercises, usually performed on a bench or with a resistance band, that are crucial to countering the g-forces drivers endure during a race.
The drivers don’t need coffee to stay sharp. The roar of the engines and zooming around at 185 MPH keeps the adrenaline flowing.
Lexus Racing
“When cornering, your neck is the most exposed part of your body,” Hawksworth says. “That’s why you’ll notice that drivers’ necks are usually out of proportion.”
Equally important is heat acclimatization. The thermostat in the sauna-like room at the team’s North Carolina training facility is set around 120 degrees, and Hawksworth does an hour of cardio on the Assault AirBike or SkiErg.
Certain races, such as the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in south-central Florida mid-March, are notoriously stifling because the course has more corners and fewer of the straightaways that allow air to flow into the cockpit.
Racing is real exercise: The drivers heart rates are revved up to between 140 to 160 beats per minute for the entire 2-hour shift.
Lexus Racing
But the Rolex 24, held every January, is a crapshoot. “It can be 30 degrees or 80 degrees,” Hawksworth says, “and the temperature at noon is not the same as the temperature at midnight.”
This is where mindset comes into play. Racing is 80- or 90-percent mental, says Hawksworth, and the Rolex 24 is no exception.
“It’s really more of a mental endurance challenge,” Hawksworth says. “You’re constantly overtaking or being overtaken. The adrenaline carries you through the full 24 hours, but it’s mentally draining. By the end, everyone looks absolutely dead. They can barely drive back to the hotel.”
Though driving may not look as taxing as, say, scoring a touchdown or goal, maintaining 140 to 160 beats per minute for hours on end is not for the faint of heart.
“I could never be a race car driver,” says Vinay Shahani, Lexus’ vice president of marketing. “The physical stress during an endurance race is unfathomable.”
“The g-force that your body takes on, and the strength and stamina you need to control that kind of vehicle, requires a lot of physical preparation,” he adds. “You also need a lot of mental acuity to pay attention to all the different inputs, especially with multiple classes running at the same time. It’s a lot of demand on the body.”
You might think they’re pounding espresso all race, but it’s not simple. “I try to stay away from too much caffeine prior to the night time stints as it can make it difficult to get sleep when you are out of the car,” says Hawksworth. “However the following morning and into the last 6 hours of the race I’ll generally consume caffeine, anywhere up to 200 mg prior to getting in the car. No other strategies to stay alert, usually the adrenaline takes care of everything, unless you become too dehydrated that can cause a lot of issues from a concentration standpoint.”
Hawksworth slept for about three hours during the 24-hour race.
Lexus Racing
But the most exhausting element may be managing your emotions and keeping them out of your head despite what unfolds on the track, according to Hawksworth.
“It’s a sport where technique is everything, so you have to eliminate your emotions from it,” he says. “If you get frustrated or angry, you make mistakes. You’ve got to stay as flat as you can and approach each session as a fresh start. It’s a confidence thing, to not dwell on your mistakes. You need to be confident that you’re doing things the right way.”
“Whether you’re two hours into the race or 24, a lot can happen,” he adds. “The key is to keep a balanced mind and not get too high or too low.”
Altogether, Hawksworth would drive for 9 hours and 20 minutes of the race, including the final two-hour stretch. He tallied less than three hours of sleep, which he says is typical for the Rolex 24.
Hawksworth drive for 9 hours and 20 minutes of the race, including the final two-hour stretch.
Lexus Racing
“You need to bank as much sleep as you can in the weeks leading up to the race,” he says. “There are so many negatives that come from not sleeping.”
That sleep-deprived, gladiatorial dynamic makes the last hour of the race the most pivotal, especially when a car in front of Hawksworth broke down abruptly, sending him careening into its rear while the Corvette C8.R he had been battling pulled ahead.
“It happened so quickly,” he recalls from his home in Bradford, England, one week later. “I could feel the contact; I heard the contact.” Fortunately, the damage to the Lexus’ front grille didn’t affect the radiator, saving the team from disqualification and allowing Hawksworth to battle it out until the end.
Drivers of the No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 on the podium (from left to right): Ben Barnicoat, Jack Hawksworth, Mike Conway.
Lexus Racing
“Even though it’s a 24-hour race, it’s not over until the last couple of minutes,” Hawksworth says. “You could pull out a big lead—15 or 20 seconds with 20 minutes to go.
The Lexus team finished third in the division, just seven seconds behind the winning Mercedes AMG GT3. The Corvette placed second. Afterward, the Lexus drivers got burgers, fries and shakes at Five Guys. Hawksworth fell into bed at 6 p.m. for the deepest 12 hours of sleep he may get all year.
From: Men’s Health US
Jaclyn Trop Writer Jaclyn Trop is an award-winning journalist and car reporter and writes for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Businessweek, Newsweek, Fast Company, Forbes, Marie Claire, Rolling Stone, Robb Report, among others.
Keyword: What It Takes to Drive at 185 MPH for 24 Hours