WeatherTech SportsCar Championship

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 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

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer While many people in motorsports long for the days of A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti racing anything and everything that a driver could get their hands on, one driver that might have slipped under their collective radar announced his retirement from racing after the 2018 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. Scott Pruett drove in Trans Am. He drove in the GTO class during IMSA’s Camel GTP era. He drove Indy cars, he drove NASCAR, even got himself a class win at Le Mans in 2001. ButRead More