Rolex 24 Coming Up

[FormerFF]

Although I'm not the greatest fan of the Grand Am series, I'm looking forward to the first major race of the season, the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The good: strong GT field, 46 is a big number. There are some good driver lineups in here sprinkled among all the gentleman drivers. Also, the driver lineups in the DP division look strong. In addition to the Grand Am regulars, a couple of the better European sports car aces will be making the trip as well. Indycar is well represented as well. I'm also looking forward to seeing how well the new spec DPs get on.

The not so good: 14 DPs is continuing the downward trend, and is exactly half the 2007 field. Also, all the NASCAR stars have skipped this race. Chip Ganassi has brought all his drivers from Indycar and Sprint Cup, and A J Allmendinger is coming as well, but none of the household names are in the field.

The (likely) bad: With all those GT cars, many of which will be piloted by gentleman drivers, we may match or exceed last year's yellow count.

I attended my first 24 hour race in 1973. The winners: Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood in the now legendary Porsche 911 Carrera RS. This year is Hurley's last, or so he says. I'll be cheering for his team to win GT.

[FormerFF]

Pretty good race. Not as many yellows as last year, but still a lot, and combine that with the closeness in performance, and you get a close finish.

I hate, hate, HATE Grand Am's wave around rule. Why should a team get a lap back just because a yellow flies? Is this a motor race or self esteem camp? I don't believe it affected the top spot, but that rule stinks. I do support the concept of giving the GT cars a wave around so as to not split their field, but giving a car the wave around within its own class, there's no justification for that.

Crowd looked decent. The announcers were trumpeting that the infield was sold out, but what actually was sold out was infield parking. Daytona has been adding stuff to the infield for years, so I'm not sure if it's a matter or more fans or less parking.

Grand Am may want to look at the speed differential between the classes. The prototypes should be either given more power (my preference) or the GTs should be slowed. I realize that the original DP formula was designed to not be too much of a handful for a gentleman driver, but considering how few gentlemen drivers are left in DP, I don't see a reason not to give them their heads.

[call_me_andrew]

^ What he said.

[00steven]

Great job by Dinger and Wilson, good to see Shank get the win.