The 36 Hours of Florida…the doubleheader…doubling down…. However you want to term it, winning the Rolex 24 At Daytona and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Cadillac in the same year is no mean feat. Era Motorsport (LMP2) and Winward Racing (GTD, pictured above) both achieved the double victory in 2024, and it puts them in some pretty impressive company. Looking back at the list of those who have won both races overall back-to-back reveals some pretty noteworthy names.
Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby were the first to do it in a Shelby American Ford GT40 Mk.II in 1966, the first year of the Daytona 24-hour race. Joe Siffert and Hans Hermann did it two years later in a Porsche 907. That little team from up the road in Jacksonville, Brumos, got the double with Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood in a Porsche Carrera RSR. Another Floridian, Preston Henn, fielded a 962 for A.J. Foyt and Bob Wollek, who took the 36 Hours in 1985.
While Wayne Taylor may not be a native of Florida, he now calls the state home, and joined with Jim Pace to win both Florida races in a Doyle Racing Riley & Scott MkIII Oldsmobile. And before the races were run under two different series with different rules, Mauro Baldi, Gianpiero Moretti and Didier Theys drove a Doran-Moretti Ferrari 333SP to the double victory.
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Since reunification in 2014, the 36 Hours of Florida had been won by seven teams before 2024, and in three years there have been winners in two different classes. Colin Braun, Jon Bennett and James Gue were the first in 2014, winning Prototype Challenge in a CORE Autosport ORECA FLM-09. In 2015, Prototype Challenge winners Mike Guasch, Andrew Palmer and Tom Kimber-Smith were joined by GTLM winners for Corvette Racing, Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia and Ryan Briscoe in a C7.R.
Pipo Derani was part of the team that won both in DPi in the first of his four Sebring victories, joining Scott Sharp and Johannes van Overbeek in the Tequila Patron ESM Ligier JS P2-Honda in 2016. Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Marcel Fassler also doubled up that year in GTLM for Corvette Racing. Finally, the last time the 36 Hours of Florida was achieved was in 2017, again a double — Wayne Taylor Racing in DPi with Ricky and Jordan Taylor in a Cadillac; and James French, Pato O’Ward and Kyle Masson for Performance Tech Motorsport in Prototype Challenge.
Now Era Motorsports’ Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and Connor Zilisch join them, along with Winward’s Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje. Both teams had won Daytona before, but this was the first Sebring victory for each.
For Dalziel, it’s particularly meaningful. He makes his home in Orlando, two hours away between Sebring and Daytona, plus his wife’s family is from the Sebring area.
“A lot of support I get down here,” he says. “My wife and all her extended family are from here. Many of her family are still here. Many of them were here watching the race. I have posters from her late father from the very first one he went to. He had every poster that he kind of left for me after he passed away.
“It’s special — they both are for me for different reasons. But I think at the same time I don’t think of them as home races. I just think of them as the races that you want to win. This one’s been a tough one for us, for me as well. Daytona, we’ve had a lot of success. Here there’s been a lot of, like … what could have been.”
Like Dalziel, Ward is happy to get that first Sebring win to go with a pair of Daytona victories.
“It feels great. We’ve been chasing this one for a couple of years. It’s really awesome to be able to get it done,” Ward said.
Both teams had to overcome challenges to get their respective victories. Era qualified 10th, and had to go from near the back of the field to the front three times. Ellis put No. 57 Mercedes AMG on the GTD pole, but the team lost its qualifying times due to unapproved sensors on the car and had to start from the rear. By the end of the second hour, Winward was near the front and would stay there for the duration.
“In this series, you need some luck to win it,” said Ward. “It’s not all about outright pace. We’ve got some really, really smart guys on the pit stand making the calls. We capitalized on three yellows that got us up to the lead. We were in the lead by hour two.
“For the endurance races, doesn’t really matter where I start, in my opinion. It’s always nice to start at the front, show the performance of the car, the performance of the team. At the end of the day we’re here to win the race.”
And win they did … again. Now they’re in some pretty stellar company among those who have won the 36 Hours of Florida.