“We could've won that race”
The records show that the driving team of Earnhardt/Earnhardt/Collins/Pilgrim finished fourth overall and second in class in the 2001 Rolex 24, 14 laps behind their sister Corvette C5-R that won the event. For Collins, thinking back to his time with Earnhardt brings mixed emotions because had the race played out differently, a victory for the No. 3 car was a very real possibility.
“My only regret or my only disappointment, actually, in that whole thing was finishing fourth. When Junior was driving in the middle of the night and he left the pits, he spun three times in one lap in the rain, understandably. But what ended up happening was that it snapped the halfshaft and Junior, who drives with a Jericho transmission in NASCAR and doesn't have a transaxle at the rear, wasn’t able to diagnose the problem when it happened. So when he limped the car in he just said, ‘The transmission’s gone, we need to change the transmission.’
“And so they lifted up the car, changed the transmission and we lost 17 minutes and then when they put the car back down and went to drive away it still wouldn't drive, and they looked under the car again and then they found it was the half shaft that was broken. So they replaced a perfectly good transmission and had that not happened, we could've won that race over our teammates, which would have been insane. You can’t blame Junior because if the same thing happened to me in a Cup car, I’d have no idea how to pinpoint what needed fixing. That's just how it goes, but we kind of gave that one away.”
4LT GS Roadster
