Champagne Celebration for Lally

There are precious few drivers in the Rolex Series that have done enough to earn the title "Mister GRAND-AM," but after lining up for his 100th start tomorrow for the BOSCH Engineering 250, you can go ahead and add Andy Lally to that list.

The affable New York native, a fixture in the Rolex Series since its inception, has made a home for himself in GRAND-AM like few others have. We've grown accustomed to seeing NASCAR drivers spend decades in their form of the sport, but to have a sportscar driver like Lally become so heavily associated with one series has been remarkable, if not wholly unique.

While Lally has tried his hand at everything from stock cars to street luge, the 35-year-old has built his career in GRAND-AM since its inaugural season. Lally's pride in being there from the start was obvious when he shared how the road to number 100 got started.

"Number one was Road America in an SRP2 car. That was in 2000, in the inaugural season of the GRAND-AM series. And there's been just a whole bunch of awesome races in between. Actually, one of the more memorable ones was race number two, which was the 24 Hours of Daytona...we won that one."

As Lally took a walk down memory lane for us, the thought of trying to capture the highlights of those first 99 races came to him.

"You know what? That would be cool if I could put a number on all of these and figure out which ones were the memorable ones! To make a quick summary along the way, in 99 starts so far, there's two Daytona 24 Hour victories, there's 20 total victories, some of them class, some of them overall, 61 podium finishes, and 74 top-five finishes. It's crazy."

For a relatively young driver -- at least in the world of sportscar racing -- Lally admitted he was surprised to look back and see just how many events and how much success he's had in such a short amount of time.

"I'm extremely proud of those numbers. It's really cool. It's third on the all-time win list, it’s first on the all-time top threes, it's first on the all-time top fives and I'm pretty sure there's a couple of cool other steps in there as well but I've been pretty fortunate. I'm the only three time Rolex Champion. It's surreal to read these stats out loud. I'm the only one on the current tour right now that has won a race on every single track on the schedule. It's been really cool looking back this last week…"

Lally said that he knew the 100th event was coming up, but wasn't exactly sure at which event it would take place.

"I thought it was going to be Lime Rock so I hadn't paid attention to a whole lot of this stuff and the series called back and they’re like, 'Oh, wait, there’s a race we missed!' I did a Daytona Prototype race that they missed. They said it's going to be VIR, so here I am!"

With a wide ranging view of the series and its growth, Lally said he's proud to see how far it has come since he made his first start.

"I was fortunate to be part of the GRAND-AM from the very beginning and also fortunate to be involved in the first season of Daytona Prototype racing. And to see the idea, the concept, and the dream of the Daytona Prototype come to a reality has been amazing. I first remember seeing a really awesome example about what the future had in store for it when Darren Law and I were teamed up with Synergy Racing, back then it was G&W Racing, and we were in Phoenix. There were only four Daytona Prototypes there but right when we went green all four were nose to tail, having an awesome battle.

"The cameras had come over to do a quick interview because Darren was running really well and I was getting ready to get in the car and I was up on top of the pit box jumping up and down and pumping my fists and I looked down and one of the SPEED reporters was there and I looked at the camera and I said, 'Imagine in a few years from now when there’s 20 of these things doing this exact same thing, this is going to be an amazing event.' And it's been pretty cool over the years to see the numbers grow and see the racing be as awesome as it is, both in the Daytona Prototype class and the GT class. It's been an honor to be a part of it and also an honor to be only the second guy to reach number 100."

In a fitting sense of coming full-circle, Darren Law, Lally's friend and former teammate, was the first GRAND-AM driver to hit the 100th race mark. Not only does Lally share that honor with Law, the two also share a heavy association with the Porsche marque. Much of Lally's time in Porsches has come with The Racer's Group -- something that he's proud of.

"I'm very happy about that because to be associated with one team for so long means that there's people that want you to stick around. And there’s certainly drivers that bounce around from team to team and it's kind of a norm in sportscar racing but I like to stay with people that have been helping me out. And Kevin [Buckler, TRG team owner] and I have worked together for a really long time and had a lot of really good results. That's been great. The association with a Porsche is the same way.

"It's funny because probably for my first 50 odd starts, none of them were Porsches, and probably the last 50 starts probably 40 or almost 50 of them have been Porsches, so it's been good. The Porsche brand has been good to me and we've had a lot of success in that. I'm also now this year doing a Kia project in the Continental Series and running with that manufacturer. So that's cool to kind of branch out with the guys at Kinetic and also work with TRG at the same time, that's pretty cool."

Rather than risk offending any of Lally's numerous teammates over the years -- and he's polite enough to care about such things -- he preferred to reflect on the tenured, respected drivers who he looked up to when he was first making his name in the sport. As it turns out, he's had a few co-drivers who showed him how to last in this profession.

Few would argue Andy Lally has come a long way since his days piloting an SRP II Picchio-BMW... (LAT)

"It would be hard for me to even put a top-10 list together of favorite drivers. I've got guys that have turned from teammates into exceptionally great friends, as well as teammates that I've had in the past that I've learned from. Guys who I've stepped into a seat with that have been probably my biggest awe-inspiring days early on with were guys like Andy Wallace, James Weaver and Butch Leitzinger. I looked up to them as a young driver and knew it would be cool to have a career like theirs."

Another reward of working in the GRAND-AM paddock since its inception, as Lally explained, has been teaming with Pro-Am drivers, and helping them to achieve their goals and dreams in sportscar racing.

"Helping guys out in the sport that aren't full-time guys, guys like Mark Bunting and RJ Valentine, and Ted Ballou, who are inspiring people that got the start on their racing careers a little later in life after business came first -- to help be able to bring them some success -- that has been a pleasure as well. Wins and championships are rewarding, but finding success with someone who is relatively new to the sport is just as big of a deal."

And what does Lally hope to receive for his 100th start? A gold watch, possibly? Maybe a cake? He says a champagne celebration -- the kind you can only get in Victory Circle -- is what he's aiming for.

"What I'm looking for is win number 21. That's the thing I’m looking for most this weekend. I'm not sure if there's any sort of real celebration or not, what anybody has planned, if anything. I'm kind of a low-key guy, so as far as celebrating anything I’d rather do it just with performances on the track and try and get win number 21, podium number 62, and top-five number 75 all on the books in one day here and move on to looking forward to what is hopefully the beginning of our steps toward race number 200."