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During the start, Gardner found the leaders accelerating long before the green flag flew, and so he too was forced to stay in the gas. The spotter called out the green, but the cars were mostly all away by that point. Shockingly, all 75 cars made it through Turn 1 without much incident, and Gardner found himself battling with one of his fiercest competitors, Dennis Holloway in the Mazda RX-8. The two went back and forth, and Gardner eventually let the Mazda go, as it was to be a long race, and battling early wasn’t a strategy the team wanted to employ.
During the first hour of the race, Gardner got settled in. Keeping the car on the track and not getting crashed out are two of the most important rules of the endurance racing game. All was going well until a Miata hit the Scion hard two times between Turn 3 and 4. Gardner’s tC slid sideways, and he caught the car just as he was being hit again. After straightening out, Gardner assessed the damage, and concluded that the car felt fine for the most part. During the first fuel stop, however, the team would find a partially destroyed right rear wheel that was digging into the sidewall of the tire. The crew finished fueling the car, and then made quick work of the wheel and tire change. Rules stipulate that you can only change one tire at a time.
Gardner was getting in a rhythm, banging off lap after lap. Fuel stops were going smoothly and quickly, and the Nitto NT-01 tires were looking great, hour after hour. The team was unsure the front tires would make it three hours, but the wear was looking perfect. Sometime in the middle of the race another Miata would mildly sideswipe Gardner, and later an Acura would chop down hard on the Scion down a straightaway, forcing Gardner to take to the dirt. The track was busy with traffic at almost every turn of every lap. Clean laps weren’t something that would happen often. Gardner remained determined to take care of the car, and make sure to make things last his entire shift.
