Rolex 24 At Daytona Preview

By Eddie LePine & Jack Webster

The 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona marks the beginning of a new era in sports car racing in the United States. After years of operating under separate rules, with different cars and mostly different drivers, GrandAm and the American Le Mans Series has merged into the new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship for the 2014 season.

Many months have gone into merging these two very different series, with new classes and rules to combine the best of both worlds, and as to be expected, final tweaking has been going on during and after the pre-season testing at Daytona, the Roar Before the 24.

Gone are the P1 prototypes, and in their place is the new unified prototype class, which is combining the Daytona Prototypes from the GrandAm series along with the P2 class of the American Le Mans Series. Steps have been taken to speed up the DP cars so they will be on par with the P2 class, and the Rolex 24 at Daytona will tell the tale if they got it right. After the Roar Before the 24, it appears that the former DP cars have a slight advantage over the P2 class, but we will wait and see how things turn out under real race conditions after 24 hours of hard racing. Will the former DP cars hold up under the new stresses created by their stronger down force and higher speeds? Will the former P2 cars be able to keep pace with the DP’s and hold together as well?

One thing is for sure, this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona is going to be one of the most interesting and closely contested races in years and will set the stage for the remainder of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season going forward from there.

Since this is all still new to us all, here is a breakdown of the new classes in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, which you will see debut at Daytona.

P (Prototype). A combination of GrandAm’s Daytona Prototype class and the P2 class from American Le Mans and Le Mans, plus the DeltaWing.  Features different chassis and engine suppliers, with all cars running on Continental tires.

PC (Prototype Challenge). These prototype cars are essentially unchanged from when they ran in the American Le Mans Series, and feature a chassis built by Oreca with engines supplied by Chevrolet and all cars running on Continental tires.

GTLM (GT Le Mans). These are the faster of the GT cars, running to the ACO (Le Mans) GTE specifications. Here you will find the familiar Corvette, Ferrari, BMW, Viper and Porsche marques competing.

GTD (GT Daytona). This class merges the GrandAm GT & GX classes along with the ALMS Porsche GTC class. Of note here for Daytona is the Audi R8, which won the class at last year’s race.

We will see a full grid of new cars take the green flag at Daytona on January 25 and at the end of 24 hours we will see the first winners and the first points scored in all of the new classes: P (Prototype), PC (Prototype Challenge), GTLM (GT Le Mans) and GTD (GT Daytona).

After Daytona, which was always a stop on the GrandAm circuit, the new series moves to Sebring, the traditional American Le Mans race. After these first two rounds of the new unified racing series, I think we will have a better idea of how the inaugural season of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship will play out.

Get to Daytona if you possibly can, it is going to be one hell of a show. We can’t wait.

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