The 2024 Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway

The 2024 Rolex 24  Daytona International Speedway was held January 27 and 28, 2024. The No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 would win and the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R would come in second in the top GTP class. Click the pics for a larger version.

One of two monstrously large Rolex banners

Teams relaxing an hour before the race

Panoramic view of the grandstands

Corvette Z06 GT3.R

Jordan Taylor mugs for the camera

25 hours later this Porsche 963 would win the race

Team owner Chip Gannassi

Cadillac V-Series.R

The winner's trophy and Rolex watch

Team co-owner Michael Andretti

JDC Miller Motorsports Porsche

All photos copyright by Christopher A, Howell. For additional information about the race visit Autoweek.

Porsche Corral 2024 Rolex 24

A photo gallery of Porsches I photographed in the Porsche Corral at the 2024 Rolex 24, Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Florida, January 27, 2024. Click the photo for a larger version.

Maybe You'll Think Of Me And Smile

 “Sometimes when you're doin' simple things around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile
You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for a while”

--Warren Zevon from his 2003 album The Wind.

When Charlotte and I met in 1989 I was struggling to find a path in the world. Charlotte was kind and smart and beautiful and she seemed to have a personality that could help steady me a bit.

When you're first dating someone you learn a lot about them right away. It’s fun to learn about their family, their job and the kind of music they like. Charlotte was younger then me and liked a lot of early 1980s bands. My musical tastes skewed older but there was a lot of overlap in what we enjoyed.

There was a singer-songwriter we both liked. I was really happy to find out she liked him too. It was Warren Zevon whose biggest hit was 1978’s “Werewolves of London”.  Some people dislike his songs because of his sometimes dark and strange lyrics but Charlotte and I instantly bonded over our love for his music. Throughout the 1990s Zevon appeared numerous times on David Letterman’s show, even sitting in as bandleader once when Paul Shaffer was away on a movie shoot. Every time Zevon was on, we were sure to tune in.

In August 2002 Zevon was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, an inoperable form of lung cancer. Charlotte and I were watching Letterman on October 30, 2002 when Zevon talked about his cancer diagnosis in an emotional and poignant last appearance. He said, “I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years. It was one of those phobias that really didn’t pay off.”  Zevon said after getting a terminal diagnosis he put more value on every minute. In what is now a legendary statement he said, “You’re reminded to enjoy every sandwich.”

Charlotte didn't have a phobia of doctors. She just didn’t like seeing doctors. She would go to the doctor when she absolutely needed to but would avoid it if she could. It was a painful and repulsive coincidence that both Warren Zevon and Charlotte would learn too late they were dying of cancer.

Upon learning of his cancer diagnosis, Zevon became determined to record a final album. He recorded The Wind, with guest stars Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Don Henley, Ry Cooder, Dwight Yoakam, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Joe Walsh and many others. The album was released on August 26, 2003, just two weeks before his death, twenty years ago on September 7, 2003.

The Wind won a 2004 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance for the song  "Disorder In The House".

"Keep Me In Your Heart" from the album was nominated for song of the year. It was the only song Charlotte specifically requested to be played at her funeral. I'm keeping both Charlotte and Warren Zevon in my heart today and everyday. 

Learn More –

Warren Zevon on Wikipedia

The Wind on Wikipedia

Warren Zevon's last appearance on The Late Show

Warren Zevon performs "Keep Me In Your Heart"

Tales from Daytona

I attended the 61st running of the Rolex 24 Race at Daytona International Speedway in Florida from January 25 through the 29th. It's a sports car race and one of the few 24 hour auto races in the world. 

On the Wednesday before the race things are just getting set up and there's not a lot of spectators at the track this early. I ran into a couple of older folks "working the gates" and they had a lot to talk about because they were bored and lonely.

I talked to a lady, she looked to be in her late 60s or early 70s. She was at the head of the stairs going to the pedestrian tunnel to the infield on the west end of the track.

She told me her son died of heart failure in the previous week. He lived in Brooklyn, New York and got COVID in that first deadly wave in March 2020 that hit New York City so hard.  She said he was hospitalized for months.  As a result, he had kidney failure and then kidney disease that was so bad he needed weekly dialysis. As she was telling me this she started to tear up a little and I tried to comfort her. 

He was just an unfortunate guy who got COVID in that very first wave before vaccines and even before hospitals knew how to really treat the disease. It sounded like maybe he suffered a lot and died young, although she didn't say how old he was. She said she was scheduled to work the Rolex 24 months ago and wasn't sure if she could do it after her son died. She had to talk it over with her other kids and they decided it might be good for her to work. "You know, get your mind off of it", she said.

She was sitting there alone and to kill time she was putting together a jigsaw puzzle. There were some pieces missing. She was using the picture of the puzzle on the box to somehow recreate the missing pieces. I've never seen that before and it was actually quite cleaver.

Charlotte's Brush With Greatness

In any relationship it's pretty wonderful when both partners have common interests.  One of the many things Charlotte and I loved together was auto racing. Of course, we didn't get to go to nearly enough races. However, we got to see a number of major events together: Two IndyCar events (when they were known as CART), five IMSA sports car endurance events, and two Formula One races.

I always said, "Look there's so-and-so, go over and let me take your picture." Let's take a trip though the years and see all the drivers Charlotte met.  

 

We traveled south for the Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami at the Homestead Motorsports Complex March 15, 1998.  It was the first round of the 1998 CART season. This is Charlotte and Danny Sullivan. Sullivan would compete in 15 Formula One races in 1983 for Tyrrell and place fifth at Monaco. He would win the CART championship in 1988. He's probably best remembered for the legendary "spin and win" where he won the 1985 Indianapolis 500 for the mighty Penske Racing.  After I snapped this Charlotte came back and whispered to me, "I grabbed Danny Sullivan's butt". After that day she would never pass up an opportunity to brag about grabbing the butt of an Indy 500 winner. 

 

 

At that same event Charlotte met Mark Blundell. A brit who competed in Formula One for four seasons and won the 1992 24 Hours of Le Mans. He would finish 12th in this race driving for PacWest Racing. I think she had a bit of a crush on Mark. 

 

Here is Charlotte yukking it up with IndyCar Champion Jimmy Vasser. This was at the 2003 Grand Prix Americas held on September 28, 2003, on the streets of downtown Miami. Vasser won the championship in 1996 driving for Chip Ganassi Racing. Vasser would finish this race 11th.  He is now a super successful co-owner of  Vasser Sullivan Racing. Taking a dig at his former boss's ego Vasser said, "There's no 'I' in team but there is in Chip".

 

Some of you NASCAR fans out there may recognize Boris Said. When NASCAR has to race at road courses like Watkins Glen they hire guys like Said to drive. It's because their regular drivers don't know how to make right turns. Said has won the 24 Hours of Daytona twice, the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 hours of the Nurbergring in Germany. This is Charlotte and Said at Sebring, March 15, 2003. Said's BMW, running in the GT class, did not finish.

 

Charlotte loved all things Italian. The land, the food, the art, and Max Papis was no exception. This picture is also from the 2003 Sebring 12 Hour Race. Papis would finish 5th in the JML Team Panoz. "Mad" Max Papis drove almost everything with wheels. One year in Formula One, eleven seasons in IndyCar. He drove for many years in NASCAR Cup, Xfinity and the Truck series. He even had a fifth overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A super nice guy. Charlotte was so shy when we saw him, I had to make her go over to get this picture. Afterwards she was so nervous she was shaking. I have to admit, she talked about Papis all the time and I was a little jealous.

 

 

Two of the most famous women in motorsports are Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney and  Lyn St James.  In the past few years women racers are no longer a novelty. Woman compete as equals. Here is Charlotte at the 2018 12 Hours of Sebring with British driver Katherine Legge. Legge has raced in a number of European series including British Formula Three, German Touring Car, and the European Le Mans Series. She has contested 39 races in IndyCar including the 2012 and 2013 Indy 500. At this race Legge placed seventh in class in an Acura NSX for Michael Shank Racing. In 2022 she drove a Porsche 911 GT3-R in IMSA for Team HardPoint.

On March 15, 2019 Sebring presented a race weekend that included a 10-hour race of the FIA World Endurance Championship on Friday with competitors from Europe along with the regular 12-hour IMSA race for American teams the next day. During the grid walk on Friday we got to see the cars from the European series up close and Charlotte got to meet AF Corse Ferrari pilot Davide Rigon.  Rigon is a skilled driver in high demand. He races all over the world in almost all endurance contests. He has driven the 24 Hours of Le Mans 8 times with his best finish in second. In addition, he also finds time to test drive for the Ferrari Formula One team.  

As I said, Charlotte loved Italians. Here she is attempting to be adopted by the AF Corse crew so she could return to Italy with them. I'm sorry I didn't get their names. None of them spoke English. They were the nicest fellows! In her Ferrari gear she could have been a team member. This would be a difficult weekend for the team placing 6th in class and 22nd overall. 

 

Unfortunately, I also had a difficult weekend. I had three sleepless nights because of the horrible mattress in our pop-up camper. My arthritis flared up and the pain coupled with the lack of sleep forced us to go home early. Apologies for bailing on my friend Rick who was there with us. This was the last race Charlotte and I would attend together. Five months later we would learn about her cancer diagnosis. 

 

This month marks two years since Charlotte crossed over.  Every race I go to I'm missing my race partner. I wanted to honor her memory in a happier way this year. Going through these pictures and putting this together was so much fun. I'm beginning to realize that the pain I feel is actually a gift. The pain of missing Charlotte is slowly being replaced by these memories that are like sweet, sweet honey.

Cargo Trailer to Camper Conversion

My friend and I dreamed up a mini-reunion of our high school pals. We planned to meet at the March 2018 Sebring 12 hour sports car race in Sebring, Florida.

At Sebring in 2018 I saw what a camper could make possible. Not only for races but also for getting more enjoyment out of life.

I started looking at campers. All types. Class A, Class B, Class C, fifth wheel trailers, travel trailers, teardrop trailers. And I couldn’t find anything that appealed to me. They all seemed so poorly made and so expensive.

So I bought this. A 2018 Mirage 6 foot by 12 foot cargo trailer. I spent six months outfitting it.

I’m looking forward to many camping adventures. The cooler winter temperatures here in Florida is the perfect time to camp. I’m already scoping out campsites in state parks and forests. I’m also looking forward to sharing those adventures with you in the future.

So until we meet again, thanks for watching.

The Thermometer

My memory is fuzzy but I think my sister, Dee Dee, gave me this wall thermometer in August 2013. Her husband had passed and I was between jobs so I had time to drive from my home in Florida to Ohio to be with her and her family. That was a very painful and emotional time. Terry was a one of a kind man. A Marine, a wonderful father, a loving husband, and the smartest and funniest guy I've ever known. Definitely taken too early.

This wall thermometer belonged to my mother. Dee Dee inherited it along with most of mom's personal possessions when mom died. I have no idea why Dee Dee still had this old thing decades later. I was happy and thankful to receive it.

Earlier, in 2006, after my Aunt Babe, died her family sent my sister a box full of loose photographs. There must have been 50 to 75 pictures from the 1930s to the 1970s. Dee Dee sent them to me. Up to that point I had very few photos of my family. I was over the moon with pleasure to get this treasure chest of memories. 

In 2013, when I got back home from Terry's service, I starting looking closely at the thermometer. Turning it over in my hands. It started triggering memories.

I remembered seeing The Thermometer in some of the historic family pictures from Aunt Babe. It's one of those unexplained cosmic life events, a synchronicity, that I would be separated from the thermometer in 1980 and then be reunited with it 33 years later. The following photo essay documents the history and travels of The Thermometer (you can click each picture to get a better view). 

The first documented appearance of The Thermometer around 1961 or 1962 at our house on Dolby Drive on Columbus's south side. I would have been 4 or 5 years old. I'm holding a Casper the Friendly Ghost doll. Dad appears to be nursing a headache. When the world was still in black and white.

We are still on Dolby Drive. Must be sometime in late 1968 or early 1969. That's my mom, Bettie Jean, and my brother Brian. Mom was smoking Camel non-filters. My dad made two matching lamps from the legs of an ornate dining room table he had scavenged. I think The Thermometer moved to the left.  The world is now in living color. 

March, 1970, Rygate Drive, Reynoldsburg, Ohio. My beautiful sister with big hair. My older brother, Timothy was home on leave from serving as a paratrooper in Vietnam.  My mom and little brother. The chalk sketch on the wall above them was a profile of me done at the Cedar Point theme park in Sandusky, Ohio.

Christmas, 1971. I was 15 and spoiled like a week old banana. I think this was our Roundelay Road home in Reynoldsburg. There's another camel but not the smokeable kind.  And one of dad's lamps still peaks out frame left. 

Approximately autumn of 1973. I'm heading out to audition for a role in the movie Saturday Night Fever. This is definitely our Roundelay Road home. An electric coo coo clock? What the what? This is the last photo I have from the history of The Thermometer. 

June 2022. Here, The Thermometer is on my wall in Florida, 62 years later. It's certainly had a rich life. I'm glad it can't talk. It's true that they don't make things now like they used to because this thermometer still works just fine. It's currently 79 degrees. I think I'll to leave it to the National Weather Service in my will.  Just one of life's oddities.

The Curtain Has Fallen

This is the last chapter. Oh sure, there are a few small details to wrap up but this is it. The End. The Conclusion. The Finish. The Curtain Has Fallen.

On Friday, November 26, 2021 I buried my wife of 30 years. A light dusting of snow fell the night before. It was overcast and gloomy. It was cold and some light snow flurries swirled in the frigid air. It was a good day for a burial. I had the honor of delivering the eulogy. It only took about 5 minutes.

Charlotte Wells came into this world on April 13th 1964 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the second of two children born to Nathaniel and Barbara Wells. 

I first met Charlotte at our workplace, a law firm, in Orlando, Florida in 1989. She was 25 years old and fresh out of Rollins College. She was an assistant in the firm’s law library and I was running a copy machine. I still have a vivid memory of her face on that day and how beautiful she was. 

She hardly knew me but one day out of the blue she walked into the copy room and looked right at me and asked, Do you know where there are any parties this weekend? That’s when we started dating. We moved into an apartment together in June 1990. We had almost nothing. Five years later we eloped to Las Vegas and got married in a church called The Little Church of the West. It was built in 1942 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Charlotte had every good quality that a person could have. She was kind, gentle, strong, caring, hard-working, reliable, honest, practical, loyal, creative, appreciative and sensitive. She was perceptive, thoughtful, willing, experienced, open-minded, intelligent, witty and much, much more. Charlotte had very few faults. She could be insecure at times. During those times I would remind her that she had great value and that she was a powerful woman. She could also be jealous and possessive – of me! And look at me. Can you really blame her?

Charlotte loved all animals but horses especially. She preferred the company of animals over people. I can’t say I blame her. She owned 4 horses and cared for many others. She rode her horses when she could but what she really enjoyed were the many hours of grooming, bathing, feeding, hoof care and training. She became an accomplished and knowledgeable horse woman. She also loved rock and roll – especially the blues. She enjoyed buying clothes and dressing to look good. She really enjoyed receiving gifts of expensive jewelry from me. 

I’d say that Charlotte and I had a relationship that was as close to perfect as any relationship could be. We loved each other very much and we were totally devoted to one another. Here’s why our relationship was perfect - Charlotte was a person who needed to be loved and cared for and I was a person who needed to show love and to care for someone. It was a perfect fit.

Now, when I look back on our 30 years together it seems like it was all a dream. I still can’t believe that a kind, wonderful, tall, beautiful girl with blonde hair married a caveman like me. It just doesn't seem real. 

Now, we wish Charlotte peace in Eternity. She has entered the last sleep free of pain and care and worry. But Charlotte’s spirit will live on in everyone who loved her. We’re here today to remember Charlotte and commit her ashes to this sacred ground. It won’t be long until I’ll return here to spend eternity with her. 

A lot of men refer to their wives as angels. But when I say my wife’s an angel it’s because now it’s true. Goodbye bunny. I’ll love you forever. 

And no, I didn't have someone else bury her. I literally buried her. The cemetery's gravediggers dug the grave. I placed the urn holding her ashes into the grave and I used my shovel to place the dirt on top of the urn. Being careful to not touch the urn, I used the shovel to break up the clodded Ohio clay into smaller pieces so it would better fit.  I packed the earth down with my foot.  Some friends helped me get the gravestone out of the bed of my pickup. We placed it upon the concrete foundation and sealed it with some special putty I got from the funeral home.  

This act was not horrible to me at all. I felt incredibly lucky to have the opportunity. It gave me a true feeling of closure and relief. 

Charlotte died of cancer in November 2020 and was cremated. I was by Charlotte's side when she got her cancer diagnosis. I took her to all her doctors appointments and chemo treatments. I took her to the emergency room a number of times. I cooked healthy food for her. I took her on her last vacation to the Smoky Mountains. I was with her at the hospital when her oncologist advised us to go home and call hospice. Toward the end I helped her to the bathroom and cleaned her body. I placed her in the bed she died in. I held her hand as the life slowly ebbed from her body. I saw this whole horrible thing through from beginning to end. I did it and now it's done.

We had no plans for getting older. Charlotte was supposed to live into her 90s like her family and I was supposed to die young like my family. Charlotte was six years younger then me and was going to take care of me when I got old. We never had kids so I won't have children to rely on for help.  As my health wanes and the lights begin to flicker I'll have to leave our beloved farm. I won't be able to do the work needed to maintain the property. It's pretty unlikely I'll ever meet anyone who could love me as much as Charlotte did. 

Now my future is uncertain. I might be able to retire in a couple of years and travel a bit but after that I don't know.

When someone you love dies so quickly you realize how precious life is. It's a cliche but it's true. The confidence of  youth is replaced by fear and uncertainly and the knowledge that you could be the next to go at any time. I've been damaged by this experience but when my parents died 40 plus years ago I learned that there's nothing more we can do for those who have passed onto the next world. It's our job, our duty to continue living our lives right here in this world. The clock keeps ticking. Life goes on.
 

I still feel her presence. I see her in my dreams and I still cry. Caring for Charlotte, serving as her husband and burying her was the honor of my life. I'll never forget her and the love we shared as long as I live.