Being a professional race car driver is something that remains a dream for most people, because quite frankly most people lack the dedication to greatness that being a professional driver requires. Yet even the best driver in the world is nothing without a team of equally-dedicated mechanics and crew members, who can make all the difference when the chips are down.

A couple of weeks ago, the all-new Shelby GT350R-C of Multimatic Racing suffered serious damage after its first practice session at Virginia International Raceway. With the actual race scheduled to take place a little more than a day later, the team had two options; forfeit the race, or drive over 700 miles to bring their backup car, an older Boss 302R, to the track.

We wouldn’t be writing this story if Multimatic had just stayed home, so as you no doubt figured out the crew dedicated themselves to getting their old race car from Markham, Ontario, Canada halfway down the east coast to VIR. But it wasn’t as easy as showing up with a new car. First, Multimatic had to get permission from IMSA to sub in the old Boss, which hadn’t raced since the Laguna Seca contest back in May.

VP of engineering Larry Mason and fellow Multimatic team member Sean Holt pulled the old Boss 302R out of semi-retirement and performed hectic maintenance to get it ready for the big show. Even though the car had been all but untouched for months, all it really needed was a quick overview and some new brake pads, and then it had to make the trek to VIR.

Meanwhile another pair of truck drivers for Multimatic had left VIR, intent on meeting Holt and Mason halfway as truckers can only drive so many hours before having to turn in for the night. At 2 AM the four men converged in West Virginia, performing the vehicular transfer for the final trip down to VIR. The Boss 302R arrived at VIR at 7:00 am, and by 9:30 AM IMSA had approved it for racing that day. After wrecking his brand new Shelby GT350R-C, Scott Maxwell and partner Billy Johnson had an almost flawless race, taking the outgunned Boss 302R to sixth-place overall.