The Rebel Rock Racing Camaro Driver Clawed Back from 14th Place in the Wet to Capture the 2019 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Victory in a Thriller
By Jeff Olson
(This is the latest of an IMSA.com series titled “What Was It Like?” where drivers and others throughout the paddock speak to special experiences they’ve encountered in their careers.)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It still comes back to him regularly, four years after it happened, and it will continue to come back to him for years to come.
In rain that couldn’t decide whether to stop or start, and with everything – including an ostensibly insurmountable distance – to make up, Robin Liddell somehow won a race he wasn’t supposed to win.
Four years later, people still talk about it. They still watch the video. They still comment. They still like it. And he still hears about it.
On Aug. 4, 2019, Liddell drove from the tail of the field in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race at Road America to win under the most unusual of circumstances – 14th place to first in all, fourth to first on the final lap. If you ask him, he’ll describe the details and the strangeness and the implausibility of it all.
And acknowledge that he drove a fine race.
“I’m not one to blow my own trumpet, but I clearly had a good drive that day,” Liddell said. “I drove out of my skin.”
He quickly shifts the praise back to where he thinks it belongs. To co-driver Frank DePew, who drove in the wet for the first time that day. To his Rebel Rock Racing team, who prepped an insanely fast Chevrolet Camaro GT4.R that slid confidently through the wet peaks and valleys of Road America. To a season so remarkable, it has its own award-winning documentary.
“It sounds a bit cliché or a bit melodramatic, but I’ll remember that day for the rest of my life,” Liddell said. “That was a really special win for us that day and a special result for me personally. I really extracted everything out of myself and out of that car on that particular day that I could’ve done.”
What he extracted was a slippery run from fourth to first in the final four turns. As Liddell’s No. 71 Camaro climbed the hill out of Turn 14 and aimed for the finish line, he noticed the leader, Kuno Wittmer, suddenly slow. That’s when Liddell edged left and tried to push the throttle through the floorboard.
It all happened in a flash.
“At that point, there was no way I was lifting off the throttle,” Liddell said. “I just kept my foot hard on the gas and went for the space on the left-hand side. I dropped a wheel on the grass, but there was no way I was going to be lifting, I would’ve gone backward over the finish line if that would’ve been how it ended up.”
Every detail is fresh in his mind. The start of the race was delayed because of rain, then shortened from 120 minutes to 75. DePew’s outstanding performance as a rain rookie on Road America’s slick hills and tricky turns. Liddell’s reaction to – and defense of – his opponent when he learned Wittmer had pressed the pit limiter instead of the radio button, causing his car to slow and allowing Liddell to sail past at the line by the smallest of margins, 0.070 seconds.
Fourteenth to first. Believe it or not, it happened.
“Obviously it was a fairytale or storybook ending,” Liddell said. “But we were incredibly lucky. Clearly, I passed a lot of people and I drove from the back to the front, so obviously I made some good passes and had some good moves, but I think we were quite lucky in a lot of ways.”
Lucky with cautions, lucky with the rain, lucky with a competitor’s mistake. But much of it, luck be damned, was pace and skill.
“Sometimes you just have to take the luck when the luck presents itself in that respect,” Liddell said. “It was a lot of fun. It was a great finish and a great weekend.”
It also was a great season, one worthy of a documentary. “Rookie Season,” produced and directed by Adrian Bonvento, which traced Rebel Rock’s debut season, won best documentary at the 2021 International Motor Film Awards in London.
Videos of the Road America race – the team’s second win of the season – remain popular on YouTube, their hit counts revived whenever someone links it to other social media. Liddell has watched the videos, and he’s read the comments. That’s when he comes to Wittmer’s defense.
“In the kindest possible way, people don’t know what they’re talking about when they pass judgment on these things,” he said, noting that it shouldn’t have been possible to engage the pit limiter at high speed.
“It’s an honest mistake, and it’s an understandable mistake,” he continued. “There’s nothing wrong with the fact he was getting on the radio to celebrate and thank his team as he crossed the finish line. The specifics surrounding that meant that having pressed the wrong button engaged the pit speed and it slowed the car. From an engineering standpoint, that never should have been possible.”
Three weeks ago, Liddell drove out of his skin once again at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, finishing second in another drive he’ll never forget. More memories await Sunday with another running of the Road America 120.
The 2019 version of that race will live on – and not just for the guy who crossed the finish line first. It’s out there, still being seen, still generating attention.
“We’re not the top series in IMSA, and sports car racing in general has sort of a niche following,” Liddell said. “We’re not Formula One or NASCAR or whatever, but people picked up on it. It’s quite nice that it was recognized. It was good racing. It was just good racing.”