Da Matta (left) and Jimmy Vasser hope to craft a new chapter to their racing partnership in Daytona Prototypes. (LAT photo) » More Photos

The early signs were good. Although da Matta starved for quality track time – with the DPs practicing alongside their GT counterparts much of the weekend, clear laps were few and far between, not to mention having to negotiate a track regularly littered with dirt and gravel from numerous off-course excursions – his lap times were comparable to those of Vasser who, ultimately, qualified the #98 car sixth on the grid.

Vasser duly started what turned out to be a decidedly choppy race, one interspersed with no less than eight full course yellows for 32 of 98 laps. Indeed, not long after Vasser turned the car over to da Matta, the Brazilian found himself in the lead of thanks in part to the cornucopia of emerging pit stop strategies. Once in the lead, however, da Matta showed every sign of staying there, stretching his margin after one restart. But another yellow proved his undoing as the team opted to keep him out on track on worn tires, then called him in on the lap the race restarted. Da Matta stayed out and was a sitting duck for those who had pitted for fresh tires, falling down the order to ninth spot.

Would that worn tires were da Matta’s only problem. Perhaps as the result of eating too much too close to the start of the race (the previous day I’d been amused to see da Matta down a lunch of fried chicken and mashed potatoes that would have made A.J. Foyt envious); perhaps as the result of an overactive cool suit, da Matta began suffering stomach cramps and finally deposited most of his lunch in his helmet and the cockpit.

Having already changed into his civvies, Vasser was unable to relieve his stricken teammate (“I’m not too sure I’d have wanted to,” he observed) and so the #98 Pontiac-Riley retired 15 laps shy of the finish.

Whatever the cause of his stomach distress, da Matta was perfectly fine five or 10 minutes later . . . and upbeat about his return to racing.

“This was nothing to do with my accident or my injuries,” he said. “I’d be worried if I felt dizzy or had a headache, but I didn’t. It felt like I had a cat in my stomach. It started feeling bad right when I got in the car . . . but just a little bit, a very little bit. Under green, it was fine, but with all of the yellows, my stomach just started feeling worse. It was very strange.

“I am fine now, but I know we could have done much better, not just me getting sick, but some of the other things we did. It's just all part of racing, but for a comeback race, it went very well. It is important that I could see the performance is there now and for the future.”

As for da Matta’s future, much of it depends on Bob Stallings’ ability to close the deal on sponsorship. But this much can be said with certainty: if de Ferran’s performance gave his ALMS competitors cause for concern, da Matta’s must surely give racers and race fans the world over cause to rejoice.