Around 3:00, the rains returned again, with a vengeance, once again bringing out the pace car to "neutralize the race cars" as the officials phrased it. The C5-Rs had built up such a lead that it was mathematically impossible for the 60 Saleen or the 58 Viper to catch either car in the remaining time, if either the S7-R or Viper was running right instead of being worked on in hopes of avoiding DNFs, so team manager Gary Pratt called both cars into the garage to sit out the rain and not put the cars at risk. It was a controversial move, one that irked a lot of the Europeans, and even frustrated a few of the GM contingent since, as the Corvettes sat for about half an hour, two of the GT class Porsches caught up with, then lapped, the GTS leaders.
Shortly before 4 p.m,. both Vettes headed back out, as did the gravely wounded Saleen and the Larbre Viper, so they could be counted as running at the finish. When the checkered flag fell, the pair of C5-Rs crossed the finish line in formation, 63 slightly ahead of and to the inside of 64. No. 63 finished 1st in GTS and 8th overall, logging 278 laps (2,349 miles). No. 64 was 2nd in class and 14th overall, having completed 271 laps.
Later that afternoon, Herb Fishel called the results, "...the greatest victory in Corvette history." And Fishel's as qualified as anyone to make a statement like that, as he is one of the few persons still employed at GM who worked directly with and for Zora. Doug Fehan said the win was, "...a total team effort...I'm proud of these drivers, the crews, and all of the people at GM who helped make this win possible. Perhaps the best summation was offered by Speedvision announcer (and racer) Derek Daly, who stated, "Nobody at Le Mans knows the Corvettes won at Daytona, but everyone at Daytona will know that Corvettes won class at Le Mans."
It must have been around 7:30 Sunday evening when five of us (R&T's Matt DeLorenzo, M/T's Jack Keebler, Jeff Kuhlman of Cadillac, Kyle Johnson of GM Communications, and myself) got together and headed into the center of town, just blocks from our hotel, the Concorde, in search of a late meal, hopefully at a caf with TVs so we could watch the CART Detroit Grand Prix. We ended up within a few hundred yards of the Place des Jacobins and the St. Julien cathedral, in a place called Dakota, dining on French Tex-Mex and watching American open-wheel cars racing on the streets of Belle Isle. Go figure
I departed France around 2 p.m. the next day. The jet lag that I'd avoided for the previous four days finally hit me, hard, and I slept, very soundly, for most of the 11-hour flight home.