DAYTONA BEACH — The Rolex 24 At Daytona got off to a spectacular start before a booming and boisterous throng of race fans at Daytona International Speedway under cloudy skies Saturday afternoon.
Before the race took the green flag at 2:40 p.m., pit road was swamped with competitors and spectators — the attendance was estimated at 40,000 — as the bright lights of the infield Midway gave the event a fun, carnival-like atmosphere.
On the track, the [...]
DAYTONA BEACH — The Rolex 24 At Daytona got off to a spectacular start before a booming and boisterous throng of race fans at Daytona International Speedway under cloudy skies Saturday afternoon.
Before the race took the green flag at 2:40 p.m., pit road was swamped with competitors and spectators — the attendance was estimated at 40,000 — as the bright lights of the infield Midway gave the event a fun, carnival-like atmosphere.
On the track, the race started at a frantic pace, as the fastest cars in the Prototype class immediately began dicing for position.
The four Cadillac DPi entries dominated the top of the leaderboard in the early going and weather turned into a complication as the race went along.
The No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac led a big chunk of laps in the third and fourth hours, with Ormond Beach’s Joao Barbosa behind the wheel.
“We’ve had a good steady pace,” he said. “The Cadillac has been strong on the long runs. This car is a lot of fun to drive.
“When the night was coming down, you could see a couple of different cars and seeing that were uncomfortable. The GT cars were trying to stay high or low.”
The Prototypes are joined in the race by GT Le Mans and GT Daytona sedans, which are considerably slower cars than the marquee class.
Part of the endurance racing allure is putting sports cars of different capabilities on the same track. In this twice-around-the-clock event, there are 50 cars racing at high speed over the 3.56-mile road course.
Keeping with a long, Rolex 24 tradition, the Prototype drivers were complaining about the GTs and the GT drivers got a bit testy when discussing Prototype behavior.
“There a lot of people in the Prototype cars, who should not be in the Prototype cars,” said Katherine Legge, a well-decorated pro driver, wheeling the No. 86 Acura NSX GT3, a GTD class entry. “We got stuck behind a Prototype going very, very slowly because he was on cold tires and he was all over the place. It’s difficult.
“The front guys are really aggressive trying to get by, and there are two or three of them you literally don’t know what they are going to do. If they hit you, it’s still your fault because you should be able to figure out they are going to do the unexpected.”
Barbosa, representing Prototype drivers, shrugged and said “it’s part of racing.”
“It’s very competitive,” he said. “They don’t want to give you any inch at all. You have to figure out what they are going to do.”
As the sun set over the track, the threat of rain began to rise.
It started to drizzle at 7:40 p.m. and turned into a downpour just a few minutes later, which threw a wrench into race strategies up and down pit road.
“It will affect everybody the same way,” Barbosa said.
Illustrating the quality of this field, all 50 starters were still being scored by IMSA in the sixth hour of competition.
Bringing up the rear of the scoreboard was the No. 58 Porsche 911 GT3R GT Daytona car.
During the warm-up lap, driver Robert Renauer looped the No. 58, damaging the car. He went straight the garage and emerged some two hours later.
At the six-hour mark, the No. 66 Ganassi Racing Ford GT was leading the GT Le Mans class, followed by its No. 67 sister car.
The No. 66 was shared by Joey Hand, Dirk Mueller and Sebastian Bourdais.
The GT Daytona leader, as the race headed toward midnight, was the No. 29 Audi R8 LMS GT3, wheeled by Sheldon van der Linder, Kelvin van der Linder and Jeffrey Schmidt.