Daytona "Winner's Watch" - 24H LeMans und 24H Daytona

[77T]

That auction will be the ultimate “buy the seller first” transaction. Anyone buying it above the going street value for a modern 116520 is going to have a difficult provenance to sort out if ever selling it later. I’m not questioning its authenticity as a 116520 - but the premium is based upon it being a Rolex24 winner’s watch.

Not only are you trusting the auction house’s scrutiny (or lack thereof) - they cite the current owner as “AN IMPORTANT ASIAN COLLECTOR”. So you are trusting an unnamed previous owner who could have been the 2nd owner or even 3rd, or 4th owner.

In reality you don’t have a trace-back to the actual person who won the watch via any chain of custody.

As for historical racing importance, the 2014 race was the first as part of the new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship series (yet this race was still the Rolex24) - ROLEX had actually dropped US support of the year-long series. Also, it was the first race since the merger of the NASCAR sanctioned GRAND-AM Rolex Series and the IMSA Patron Tequila American Le Mans Series - basically NASCAR had just bought out its competitor. So a verified 2014 winners watch has that going for it.

Back to the provenance of this particular watch, there is a short, and potentially misleading, reference to the Action Express drivers team (Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi and Sebastien Bourdais) who won the 2014 race overall. One of those 3 drivers, plus the team owner (Bob Johnson), might have been the original owner of this 116520. But it is highly unlikely they sold theirs.

There are about 2-dozen other potential sources for that race winner’s watch because the Rolex24 has multiple class winners/owners. After the merger there were many more classes at this race because it takes years to fairly merge the technical specs. There were 6 classes running at that race, some teams had as many as 5 drivers + the owner who won a 116520. Hard to trace all those people down - but the Wiki is at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014...urs_of_Daytona


But...I have some info that may bear on who may have been the original winner of this watch and the actual source. If you want that opinion, read on - if I’m boring anyone then move on to another post.

First some background...

There was a poorly made decision at the final lap of the 2014 race that rendered a change in the winner of the GT Daytona (GTD) category. A decision that was later reversed after the watches had been awarded. I know the officials and it was their worst day ever (after overseeing the race for over 24 hours).

The Race Director (RD) was new to this role - he had been the Clerk of the Course for many previous seasons - but the prior Race Director that he served had just jumped to INDYCAR at the end of 2013. So this race fell to him as his first-ever IMSA role as leader. Worse, it was the first year where NASCAR had replaced the FIA Stewards who made this type of decision in the past.

A last-lap judgment by this RD ostensibly made GTD winners of Audi drivers Spencer Pumpelly, Markus Winkelhock, Nelson Canache Jr. and Tim Pappas in the GT Daytona class. But after further review, IMSA reversed the ruling and awarded the win to the Level 5 Motorsports Ferrari team, which included Scott Tucker, Jeff Segal, Townsend Bell and Bill Sweedler.

Now here is a twisted turn - or a twist of justice - that directly bears on this watch’s original ownership. Level 5’s lead driver (who was also the owner) was Scott Tucker. In January, 2018 he was convicted of federal crimes associated with his payday lending businesses. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison and all his corporate and race team assets were auctioned off by the bankruptcy court and later federal asset recovery auctions.

I strongly suspect, and it is highly likely, that this 116520 is one of those assets. Scott would have received 2 watches - one as owner, and one as driver. If so, it has an inauspicious history in this regard: The money that funded his win at the 2014 Rolex24 came from the criminal fleecing of mostly soldiers and sailors at his predatory payday lending centers. I believe the bidders deserve some better info on the history of this watch if they wish to steer clear of anything associated with tainted history.

I know many of the other teams and drivers - and, despite many having multiple winner’s watches, they don’t sell their trophies. Hope that story sheds some light on an otherwise obtuse auction...


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