All posts by Christopher DeHarde

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer DAYTONA BEACH, Florida — The 2018 edition of the Rolex 24 at Daytona is upon us and with 50 cars entered it is one of the more talent-filled rosters in the race’s history. Let’s make some predictions about Winners, losers and everything in between. Overall winner: No. 7 Acura Team Penske Team Penske has a stacked lineup with Helio Castroneves, Ricky Taylor and Graham Rahal behind the wheel. All three have extensive racing experience and know how to bring a car home in one piece. ThisRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer DAYTONA BEACH, Florida — The checkered flag has dropped on final practice for the 2018 Rolex 24 at Daytona and it was extremely close at the sharp end of the grid. The No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi was fastest with Mike Conway putting in a lap of 1:36.865, just .181 seconds over the No. 37 Jackie Chan DCR JOTA ORECA LMP2 machine driven by Lance Stroll. Third fastest and just .253 seconds off fastest time was the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Cadillac DPiRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer Qualifying for the 2018 Rolex 24 at Daytona was a tense affair and it came down to a last lap dash by Renger van der Zande as he pushed his Wayne Taylor Racing No. 10 Cadillac DPi to pole position ahead of Saturday’s racing classic with a fastest lap of 1:36.083. That lap was .007 seconds faster than Helio Castroneves’s in the No. 7 Team Penske Acura. Behind them, Action Express Racing has their No. 5 Cadillac DPi ahead of Performance Tech Motorsports’s ORECA LMP2 machineRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer The largest class at the 2018 Rolex 24 at Daytona, GT Daytona (GTD) has 21 entries with no shortage of talent in GT3 machinery. The pro-am class mixes many seasoned endurance veterans with gentleman drivers looking to make their mark at the World Center of Racing. Let’s look at the GTD grid by manufacturer. Lamborghini The Lamborghini Huracan GT3 cars were devilishly quick at the Roar before the 24 and they have three cars at the Rolex 24 entered by GRT Grasser (two cars) and PaulRead More

While GT Le Mans (GTLM) has the smallest field at nine cars, there is no shortage of action between the manufacturers. Let’s take a look at the class by manufacturer. Corvette The brute strength of the C7.Rs cannot be overstated as the popular GM marque won back-to-back runnings in 2015 and 2016 with 2016 being a classic photo finish with the two cars so close to each other. Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia, Tommy Milner and Marcel Fassler highlight a powerful driving lineup for the Chevrolet team and will be fightingRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer The 2018 Rolex 24 at Daytona has achieved star power status with world championship-caliber drivers and manufacturers in the Prototype ranks in the second year of the DPi/LMP2 rules package. (what is a DPi? https://www.imsa.com/qa-2017-daytona-prototype-international-dpi-concept) The entry list has four manufacturers in the DPi ranks with Nissan (two cars), Mazda (two cars), Acura (two cars) and Cadillac (four cars) going up against 10 LMP2 cars from Oreca (six cars), Riley/Multimatic (one car) and Ligier (three cars). Let’s look at the Prototype portion of the entry listRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer With a new year comes new driver announcements and the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship powered by Mazda is no different as three drivers have announced their plans for 2018. Kory Enders will be rejoining DEForce for his and the team’s sophomore campaign. In 2017 Enders had one top five finish and seven top 10 finishes with only one retirement. 2017 team champions Pabst Racing announced that Rasmus Lindh will be joining Lucas Kohl for the 2018 season. Lindh progressed through the karting ranks in Europe andRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer After winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times (2011, 2012 and 2014) as a chief engineer for Audi, Leena Gade will now be on the prowl to win the second part of the heralded racing triple crown as she has joined Schmidt Peterson Motorsports as lead engineer on James Hinchcliffe’s No. 5 Arrow Electronics Honda. Gade joins SPM after a stint at Bentley as a motorsport project manager following Audi’s withdrawal from prototype racing. She is the first woman to be a lead engineerRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer Going through the session results for the Roar Before the 24 a week later, a few things stood out that deserve attention ahead of the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship season opener. Mazda Mazda had a rough go with a private testing incident in December setting their program back but it’s interesting to see their progress through the various sessions. In the first session, neither Mazda Team Joest Mazda DPi took to the track and in the second session the No. 55 car with SpencerRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer The Roar Before the 24 gives teams in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship the opportunity to test out their machines ahead of the season-opening Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona at the Daytona International Speedway road course. The end of the testing period is marked by a qualifying session that determines pit road and garage space selection. Prototype It was a near-perfect Cadillac sweep of the top three positions of the seven practice sessions. Out of 21 positions, Cadillac-powered DPi machines occupied 18 of those positionsRead More