IMSA's Grand Touring Prototype formula spanned 1981-'93, its replacement, the World Sports Car concept, took over in 1994, and with Saturday's season finale at Petit Le Mans, the WSC-inspired Daytona Prototype formula will bid farewell after its lengthy reign.
The tubeframe prototypes ushered in Grand-Am's top-tier Rolex Series category in 2003, and are responsible for many of the businesses, team owners, drivers, and crew members that populate today's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Positioned between GTPs and LMP1s, DPs fostered limited enthusiasm among fans, but their value in keeping North American sportscar racing alive and moving during turbulent financial patches cannot be denied.
To give DPs a proper sendoff, RACER spoke with the father of the DP formula, IMSA's Mark Raffauf (below), Bill Riley – whose DPs won more poles, races, and championships than any other model – championship-winning DP driver and team owner Wayne Taylor and Michael Shank, whose junior open-wheel team used DPs to build a privateer team into a program that has recently earned its first major factory racing contract.
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