MOTORSPORTS
GEARS, VEERS AND CHEERS The world’s fastest Boulle ends another racing season with drama and drive.
A year full of twists and turns — and blasts down the straightaways — is behind Nicholas Boulle. The president of de Boulle Diamond & Jewelry in Houston has a well-known passion for race-car driving, having become the first and only authorized Rolex dealer to win the famed Rolex 24 at Daytona, in 2017. Boulle’s driving career has led him all over the U.S. and Europe, to some of the most famous tracks in the world. As for the end of 2022, Boulle wrapped a busy IMSA (Inter- national Motor Sports Association) season at the Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, where he joined Hardpoint team drivers Rob Ferriol and Katherine Legge in the 10-hour Mo - tul Petit Le Mans endurance classic — part of the Michelin Pilot Challenge — at the wheel of the No. 99 GridRival/ de- Boulle Diamond & Jewelry Porsche 911 GT3 R. (Insider FYI: The race would be the final IMSA race for this model, since Porsche has launched a new version of the GT3 R for the 2023 season.)
and Cusick Motorsports that will see Wilson join Legge and Ferriol for all four IMSA Mi- chelin Endurance Cup races in 2023.) The early promise faded quickly, though, just after the six-hour mark. Still running competitive lap times, now with Ferriol behind the wheel, the Hardpoint GT3 R ran into a Prototype 2–class car that was 10 laps off the pace and had run wide in Turn Three. The Prototype car and Ferriol’s car made side-to-side contact, damaging the Porsche’s front splitter, front right damper and bending the steering rack, which forced the team to the garage for a one-hour-and- 15-minute repair. Despite a tremendous effort by the Hardpoint Motorsports crew, the unanticipated work left the team 37 laps down and in 17th place when the drivers went back to work, running lap times matching their earli- er top-five pace, led by Legge’s team-best 1:45.895 (121.025
mph). The combined effort throughout the night and into Sunday afternoon saw the team make up six additional spots to land the 10th spot at the finish, with 672 laps com - pleted for a total of 2,392.32 miles. That final position came with just minutes to spare in the race, with the team’s car moving around a class car — it retired with three minutes to go — and grinding to the fin - ish, 35 laps behind the GTD leader. Says Boulle, about the in- tense 24 hours: “The team worked so hard leading up to the race and then all night. Tire guys, fuel guys: Every- body really did a good job, and no one made a mistake that cost us a significant amount of time. It’s bittersweet because it was a great top-10 finish, but there was a better result in there if we had kept it clean. Hopefully, we’ll take this ex - perience on to something big- ger the next time — and come home with some hardware.”
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