Star-Studded Field Hopes To Go The Distance At Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The Grand American Road Racing Ass’n broke away from the traditional sports-car racing sect when it developed a set of rules that emphasized competitive equality and safety over advanced technology and introduced the Daytona Prototype coupes in 2003.
Setting strict limits on technology and change aimed at creating a stable and affordable rules environment was a huge departure for sport-car racing.
At the time, there were many who thought that the Grand Am had made a serious mistake, a position bolstered by the fact that throughout that initial 2003 campaign there were never more than seven or eight of the DP coupes at any one event.
Now, as the Daytona Prototypes open their sixth season this weekend at Daytona Int’l Speedway, those views of doom and gloom have proven wrong. While much of the sports-car world is struggling in terms of its car counts, the Grand Am’s grids are full with this year’s Rolex 24 At Daytona having in excess of 55 entries, just under half of which are prototypes.
More importantly, in both the DP and GT divisions, the competition is so tight that often the top-five and sometimes even the top-10 finishers are covered by less than 10 seconds, this in an era where traditionally anything under 15 seconds is considered “close.”
Equally important is the fact Grand Am has established a tradition of not deciding its divisional titles until its season finales, often in the closing laps.

A year ago at the Rolex 24, not only were the top three cars in the race on the same lap during its final hours, they were for the most part within yards of each other before Scott Pruett, Salvador Duran and former Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya pulled away by a small margin to win in Chip Ganassi’s Telmex Lexus-Riley.

For a look at who is competing in the 2008 Rolex 24 At Daytona, visit Grand-Am.com.

This year, another star-studded Ganassi team will be looking for its third-consecutive Daytona victory. Pruett and Montoya will team with Memo Rojas and reigning Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti in one car, while Duran will share the second entry with 2007 Indy Pro Series champion Alex Lloyd and the Ganassi Indy Car duo of Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon. Dixon and Wheldon teamed with Casey Mears to win the twice-around-the-clock classic in 2006.
Grand Am officials have made some changes to the regulations for this season, bringing Pirelli on board as its official tire supplier and allowing new modifications to the Daytona Prototypes, all aimed at improving “the show” while maintaining the competitiveness seen in previous seasons.
Just how well Grand Am has succeeded in achieving this goal will be answered during the Rolex 24. Still, if the times of the pre-season tests here at the Speedway earlier this month, where the top 11 Daytona Prototypes, and about the same number of leading GT runners were all with a second and a half of each other on the clock. It appears officials have done their job well.
And even though there were familiar names at the top of the test standings — including last year’s Rolex 24 winners as well as the SunTrust Pontiac Riley of Wayne Taylor and company, past 24-Hour and Rolex champions themselves, along with the reigning Gainsco Pontiac Riley title holders Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty — there appears plenty of room for newcomers.
Although they had shown themselves to be competitive in the past, it wasn’t until last year that Gurney and Fogarty put it altogether and put their stamp on the championship.
This time around there will be a “new-old face” in the mix, as the similar Pontiac-Riley of Penske-Taylor racing with two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, Ryan Briscoe and former NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Kurt Busch second on the speed charts during January testing. Also new in the GT division will be a pair of Ferrari 430 GTs entered by the Mastercar team. Even so, the Italian newcomers will most likely find the going difficult in the face of stiff opposition from the fleet of fast Porsche GT3s, Mazda RX8s and Pontiac GXP-Rs, all of which were quick in pre-race testing.
No matter what happens, the Rolex 24 should be, as it has in the past, a great kickoff to another memorable season of Grand Am Rolex Series sports-car competition.