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Rolex24 Activities Underway In Daytona

53-car Rolex24 lined-up for annual full-field photo-shoot. [Joe Jennings Photo]

Daytona Beach, Fla. – Race teams have arrived in Daytona Beach to begin preparations for the 53rd Rolex24 at Daytona, the longest sports-car race in the United States. The race marks the second time around for the fledgling TUDOR United SportsCar Championship Series, which came about with the merger of the high-tech American LeMans Series and the more economical Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.

The Rolex24 also marks the opening round of the four-race Tequila Patron North American Endurance Championship Cup.
In the Rolex24 a year ago, 62 teams started the grueling event and for the 2015 edition, 53 teams are on hand, luring cars and drivers from around the world. 196 drivers will be in competition, and in showing the international flair, the drivers hail from some 27 countries. 117 of the drivers were born outside the United States.

Given the prestige of the event and it being the off-season, drivers come from the sports-car ranks, the Verizon IndyCar Series, NASCAR, Formula 1 and elsewhere.

Sports-car fans travel long distances to see the race and tickets have been sold to fans from 21 countries and from many states in the United States.

Four classes of cars will race, ranging from the fastest Protoype class (16 entries) to the open-cockpit Prototype Challenge (8) to two classes of sedans, the GT LeMans (10) and the GT Daytona (19). Numbers of entries are shown in parentheses.

For a colorful photo-shoot on Wednesday, all 53 shiny entries were lined up on pit road to the delight of photographers.

In the 2014 race, the Action Express Corvette DP of Joao Barbosa (Portugal), Christian Fittipaldi (Brazil), Sebastian Bourdais (France) and Burt Frisselle (Colorado) raced to victory in the Prototype class, covering 695 laps around the 3.56-mile road course.

Barbosa, Fittipaldi and Bourdais will return to defend their crown and hope to pick up another of the prestigious Rolex24 winning watches. Watches go to the winners in each of the classes.

FOX will provide 15.5 hours of live coverage with the FOX Network telecasting the first two hours starting at 2 p.m. ET. Fox Sports 2 picks up the baton from 4 to 8 p.m. and Fox Sports 1 carries the coverage from 8 to 10 p.m. and on Sunday from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Between 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 7 a.m., the race will be on IMSA TV on IMSA.com. All times shown are for ET.

Practice commences on Thursday with qualifications run in the late afternoon followed by night practice. Another hour of practice takes place Friday morning ahead of the 2.5-hour BMW Performance 200, the season opener for the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Series.

On Saturday prior to the green flag, there is considerable pre-race pageantry and an hour-long autograph session that all drivers participate in. Fans line up early for the autograph party.

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