IMSA 2018

Hotrod said:
In the P class someone mentioned in an interview he thought there may be 15 season regulars this year.
Given the Jackie Chan and the United entries wont be regulars , who are the other 2?
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Everyone in P that's testing this weekend outside of JCDC and United should be full-time this year, so 16. BAR1 will probably have several different lineups they'll use this year but they should be at every race.
 
Scott Pruett has announced he will retire from racing following this month’s Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, a race he has won five times.
Pruett holds the record of 60 wins in American sports car competition, including five overall victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. He is also a five-time Rolex Grand-Am Champion (2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012) and two-time IMSA champion (1986 and 1988).
As well as his sportscar accomplishments, which include class victory at Le Mans in 2001, Pruett raced in Indy car, earning two wins, five poles and 15 podium finishes, and grabbing the Indy 500 co-Rookie of the Year honors in 1989. He is also a Trans-Am legend, scoring three championships and 24 race wins, and has poles in NASCAR and wins in International Race of Champions [IROC]. Pruett also raced in IROC competition for eight seasons, earning two victories.
https://www.motorsport.com/imsa/news/pruett-to-retire-after-rolex-24-993076/
 
Wow, good for Pruett. Wish I had a nickel for every " Hi to my family at home" I heard.
He will be in a Hall of Fame some where. Looks like he will stay tied with
Hurley at 5 for the most overall 24 Daytona wins.
 
Ricky Taylors Penske down in 15th, his old ride in 3rd for today.
Second thoughts yet? Just a little funny, still early .
 
Hotrod said:
I know its early , first laps of 2018, blah blah blah, but dang Cadi! 1,2,3,4 and 3 seconds ahead 25 minutes in.
Penske wont stand for this . I hope.
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Except Penske probably has four seconds he isn't showing us yet! Remember, they had the fastest car on the track at the Petite, so they know what they have to do to make the Acura competitive. No way they are this far off when it comes time to qualify.
 
Doc Austin said:
Except Penske probably has four seconds he isn't showing us yet! Remember, they had the fastest car on the track at the Petite, so they know what they have to do to make the Acura competitive. No way they are this far off when it comes time to qualify.
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Yeah, I remember they were pretty quick out of the box at Petit.
******** also **********
Been a Colin Braun fan a real long time. Glad to see him I think in 2nd with their Oreca.
 
No doubt Penske are leaving a little on the table for now. We probably won't see their true pace until tomorrow's qualifying, maybe even until race week.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Good riddance.

Speaking of which, he has a couple of DWR episodes too. One about the racing and one about the business stuff. Worth a listen. You can hear how this guy has been so convincing and persuasive for so long.
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Also - what dropped my jaw - was the DWR episode in season one called Level 5 Racing.
Its Jeff Braun talking about working for Tucker. Amazing story there of putting together
a car for an SCCA event. They spent millions on it just to go spank the field which they
did . Really funny hearing Braun tell the story. It was a project with a "sky is the limit" budget.
For an SCCA racer!
 
In the distant past, 24 hour races were always a crap shoot because of attrition. The last few years we have not had that much of it because the original Daytona Prototypes were pretty stout machines. This year it's hard to predict the outcome because the quality of the field goes so deep. This could be the most competitive field of prototypes we have seen since the mid 80s Group C days.

This year is going to be impossible to predict simply because we have so many new teams and combinations. There are also quality winning efforts like the United Autosports car, which would be a contender even without Alonso. You also can't count out the Jackie Chan car, something the Porsche LMP1 team can tell you about. JD Miller now has some capital to work with through Gainsco, and after last year's performances have to be considered solid contenders. The CORE car also looks really, really strong.

Notice I didn't even mention the four Cadillacs, two Nissans, two Mazdas and two Penske Acuras. We have a reasonably complete prototype field even without them. Most people probably believe the winners will come from this list of factory cars, but I am not so sure. Remember that the Gibson V8 is about as reliable as a concrete block, and that will definitely work to the privateer's advantage.

I don't have an entry list in front of me, but I don't believe we have any junk entries. Probably every prototype that lines up will have a chance to win. For some it might take a bit of luck, but at least they have a chance, and hopefully that alone will keep all these cars and teams in the game long term, and hopefully pull in some new teams as well.

So, I don't have a clue who will win. Even if there was a solid favorite it all depends on who hits the set up and gets the breaks. When your throw in weather, slower traffic and parts falling off the cars, or even outright blowing up, there's no way to even make a reasonable prediction. This is what endurance racing is supposed to be like.

Personally I am pulling for any of the smaller P2 teams. When the privateers win, the sport prospers. The flip side is that no one would mind seeing Helio win, Mazda certainly deserves success, and an Alonso win wouldn't hurt the series profile either.

If you also consider that WEC is looking like 25-30 P2 entries and about the same in ELMS, pretty clearly the P2 platform makes the first viable world platform we have ever seen. All the FIA has to do is allow the DPI and P2 cars to go head to head for overall wins and sportscar racing could very well reach a height we have never seen before. Here's one prediction I can fearlessly make: This will be yet another lost opportunity for sportscar racing, and probably the best opportunity we have seen yet.

Still, we are probably going to have the best Rolex we have had in a long, long time.
 
Hotrod said:
Also - what dropped my jaw - was the DWR episode in season one called Level 5 Racing.
Its Jeff Braun talking about working for Tucker. Amazing story there of putting together
a car for an SCCA event. They spent millions on it just to go spank the field which they
did . Really funny hearing Braun tell the story. It was a project with a "sky is the limit" budget.
For an SCCA racer!
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Not only do honest racers had to fend off the factories, they have to race against the unlimited funding of criminals and drug smugglers. I don't know who is currently smuggling drugs, but there always seems to be someone. So, this is part of why I want to see a privateer win. So much of racing is overcoming insurmountable odds, and no one faces more of that then the privateers.

FLRacingFan said:
No doubt Penske are leaving a little on the table for now. We probably won't see their true pace until tomorrow's qualifying, maybe even until race week.
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I think everyone except maybe CORE is holding back some. Most of the reason we have this test is for IMSA to get the BOP right, and if you go out there and hammer everyone by five or six seconds you can bet IMSA is going to dial you back. Still, the last I read the Caddies finished 1-4, so I don't think they are going to come out unscathed.

You know, for Penske to win the pole at the Petite, and nearly win it in spite of everything going wrong, there's no way they are going to come to Daytona with the same basic chassis and end up 4 seconds back. No way. They absolutely have to be playing games of some sort. I'de be really surprised if they do not have at least one car on the first two rows.
 
Does the heart good seeing current F1 talent Alonso and Stroll out there in night practice now.
 
Top 10 P's with in 1/2 second in Best lap category during nite practice.
Foaming at the mouth just thinking about the season ahead of us.
Top 10 - 4 cadis - 2 orecas - 2 acuras -1 Nissan - 1 mazda
 
Really surprised at how big the crowd was for the PC race. Peak audience of the day, pretty tough to find parking in there during that one.

Not surprisingly, United Autosports had the biggest gathering around their garage area today. Alonsomania is a very real thing even if not to the extent of the 500.

Gotta love that twelve Prototypes are within a second of each other at the moment. Qualifying is going to be interesting tomorrow.

I gotta say that I won't be surprised if we have more incidents between P and GT3 cars this year, with more Prototypes they're going to be more aggressive to not lose time and sheer volume alone will probably lead to more incidents too. The closing rates between P and GT3 is insane, I saw a few Prototypes almost flatten a few of them thinking they could divebomb at the kink tonight.
 
I'm ready for the Rolex now. In fact, I thought it was today!

I know the P3 cars are so close in speed to the LMGT cars that it would be chaos if they ran together, but can you imagine the badass prototype grid we could have with DPI and P3 running together? We could easily have 40 prototypes tomorrow, and maybe even more. Give it a year to grow and there's no telling how big an all prototype series could be. Run the GT cars in their own race, and then throw them all in together for the endros like they did in the Camel GT days.

I read somewhere the other day that Ligier just finished building their 100th P3 car. This shows how well supported a class built around affordable cars and a sensible rules package can be. Remember, P3 is not even a full year old in the US, and look at the field of cars we had today.
 
For the benefit of those of us who aren't familiar with the specs, would someone provide a link to an explanation of P3, GT3, etc?

<southern belle voice> "Why, I'd be evah so grateful!"
 
Charlie Spencer said:
For the benefit of those of us who aren't familiar with the specs, would someone provide a link to an explanation of P3, GT3, etc?

<southern belle voice> "Why, I'd be evah so grateful!"
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P3 is a lot like P2 in that there are a select few designated chassis constructors, with a spec V8 engine, spec gearbox, and spec electronics.

GT3 doesn't really have many regulations that I know besides being production-based coupes with ABS and TC, because it was initially supposed to be more of Pro-Am category than it's come to be. Since it's pretty open and so many different series to sell customer cars for there are so many manufacturers involved and BoP takes care of everything pretty well. GT4 is a booming category and is a closer counterpart to the road-going cars, and even has some watered down versions of the same models (Audi R8, Mercedes-AMG GT).

GTE/GTLM has more defined regulations and minimum production requirements.

TCR is new to Conti this year and has 4- or 5-door FWD cars with turbo engines up to 2.0L.

http://www.fiawec.com/en/classes/32

http://europeanlemansseries.com/en/elms/the-different-classes/4

https://sportscarchallenge.imsa.com/discover-sportscar-challenge/classes

https://sportscarchampionship.imsa.com/discover-sportscar-championship/classes
 
Pole in P last year - 1:36.903. Fastest race lap - 1:36.269. Felipe Nasr lays down a 1:35.806 at the Roar. Damn. If the Cadillacs left anything in reserve this weekend, it wasn't a whole lot.
 
The only Roar I have been to was in 2014. I would say the grass areas in the infield back then was 35% full
with most of that being Boy Scouts. This year looked dang near sold out. I am feeling really good about sports cars.
This merger seems to be working out and back on track . I do miss 60 or 70 car counts in Conti though. I guess PWC has
something to do with that. 50 is a good Daytona 24 number for the Weathertech guys. Looks like
I am at 80% right now attending the 24. Fingers still crossed for fair weather. Not sure I have a rain fest in me like last year.
 
Hotrod said:
Looks like I am at 80% right now attending the 24. Fingers still crossed for fair weather. Not sure I have a rain fest in me like last year.
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I've been to a few Rolex that were cold. The Atlantic is only about two miles away, and when the sea breeze comes in at night it swirls around the speedway bowl and the wind chill gets dangerous. If it looks like it's going to be cold make sure you are way more than ready. Seriously. That place can get deadly cold at night. But, I hope you have nice weather.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Pole in P last year - 1:36.903. Fastest race lap - 1:36.269. Felipe Nasr lays down a 1:35.806 at the Roar. Damn. If the Cadillacs left anything in reserve this weekend, it wasn't a whole lot.
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I'm pretty sure in view of the 1-4 sweep that the BOP is probably going to change before race day.
 
A few people are complaining that private vendors will not allow to be on speedway property for the 24.
 
rowdy3 said:
A few people are complaining that private vendors will not allow to be on speedway property for the 24.
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Not only do vendors have to pay a fee, but I believe the speedway also gets a percentage of their gross. Hard to believe they would give that up unless they have their own merchandising plans.
 
rowdy3 said:
A few people are complaining that private vendors will not allow to be on speedway property for the 24.
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They were there during the Roar, and that makes me believe the speculation I've seen elsewhere that it's due to space constraints. They paved over some more of the infield area to make more room for parking and who knows how much more OEM activation is going to be there this year.

That is really disappointing though, they're my favorite stands to look at. I'm hopeful they can at least find somewhere in the massive area outside of the tri-oval to put them.
 
I am having a hard time finding a pdf of the 24 weekend schedule. Please post if you find. Thanks.
 
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