DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — It looks as if the upcoming 2008 Rolex Sports Car season will be a fast one if the times from last week’s test here at the Daytona Int’l Speedway hold up.
Although no official times were released, Max Angelelli turned an unofficial lap at 1:41.196 in Wayne Taylor’s SunTrust Pontiac Riley, some 2.3 seconds quicker than the 2007 Rolex 24 pole time for reigning series champions, Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty in the Gainsco Riley, similarly Pontiac powered.
Moreover, it wasn’t just the Daytona Prototype set that was quicker. Erik Lux in his Farnbacher Loles Porsche 911 GT3 being clocked at 1:51.299, about a half-second quicker than the GT division pole last winter, which was taken by another GT3 Porsche.
In large measure, most drivers of more than 40 registered cars, 19 of them in the prototype category, attributed the increased speeds to the new Pirelli P-Zero tires, which have replaced last year’s Hoosiers as the spec rubber for the Grand Am title chase. In all, no less than 12 of the enclosed DP coupes bettered Gurney and Fogarty’s pole garnering lap.
Perhaps even more important than the statistics was the fact that not only has the competitive balance that has so long been a hallmark of the Rolex Sports Car tour been maintained, but so too is the performance of the Pirellis themselves. As one crew chief put it, “they don’t seem to fall off all that much over long runs. In fact, we set some of our fastest times on well-used tires, a fact which really bodes well for the race next January.”
Interestingly, Angelelli is expected to be joined by Michael Valiante and Taylor’s son, Ricky, for January’s 24-Hour Rolex opener, with the elder Taylor also expected to be behind the wheel as the SunTrust team aims to regain not only the past glory of winning the Rolex 24, which they did in 2005, but once more reigning as series champions. Both of those goals could be tough, with Gainsco’s Gurney and Fogarty likely to be joined in January by top NASCAR ace, Jimmy Johnson.
Equally interesting was the fact that longtime Porsche stalwart Alex Job had ace BMW man Bill Auberlen driving his Porsche-powered Crawford, while the Brumos Porsche Riley squad added to its storied driver lineup that includes Hurley Haywood, who will primarily act as the team’s manager in 2008, Darren Law, David Donohue, J.C. France and Jose Barbosa.
One thing that will not be seen at the Rolex 24, though, are the revised Daytona Prototypes, which will make their debut at the 2008 season’s second round in Homestead at the end of March, the body shapes for the revised machines only recently receiving approval from Grand Am officials. It is possible that some of the “new look” DP set will appear at the Rolex tour’s second, and last pre-season test back at Daytona the first weekend in January.
Indeed, with the Grand Am taking a much stronger stance against excessive, no official testing this coming year, getting the new cars, as well as the present equipment optimized could become an issue. Even so. It appears from what happened here last week that the competitive equality, which made the Rolex exciting to watch in 2007, won’t be disappearing any time soon, no matter what development steps are — or are not — taken by the teams and the manufacturers.