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As the sun set and chilly weather descended on Daytona International Speedway, Dean Martin heated up the asphalt with a lap that surprised even himself, given the fact that his No. 59 KohR Motorsports Ford Mustang was a late entry, and the car had some problems that required repair right up to qualifying time.

Then it was up to Martin, a sports car veteran, and he delivered. “I just went for it,” he said, coming into the tight Bus Stop chicane on his last lap “so fast I wasn’t sure I was going to come out the other side.” But that flying lap of 1 minute, 55.754 seconds was enough to give Martin the pole over fellow Mustang driver and defending champion Scott Maxwell in the Multimatic Motorsports No. 15.

Maxwell, who has a class win in the 24 Hours of Le Mans on his resume, turned a lap of 1:55.788, just 0.034 seconds behind Martin. It will be an all-Ford front row for the four-hour IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race; the BMW Endurance Challenge at Daytona.

Third was the No. 76 McLaren GT4 fielded by C360R and driven by Matt Plumb to a best lap of 1:56.360, followed by a Porsche Cayman GT4, two more McLarens and an Aston Martin Vantage.

The cars in the Grand Sport, or GS class, are operating under new rules for 2017 that make cars built to global GT4 specifications legal, used by multiple series worldwide. This has generated a lot of excitement in the class, and a lot of entries – 20 in GS, and 20 in the Street Tuner, or ST class.

In ST, Connor Bloum put the No. 18 RS1 Porsche Cayman on the pole with a lap of 2:04.900 – impressive since he has never driven in Continental Tire Challenge qualifying. “I owe it all to the guys at RS1,” he said. “My first time qualifying I the series, and it couldn’t have gone better.”

The four-hour race is the lengthiest one the series has run at Daytona. “It’s going to be a long race,” Bloum said. “You’ve got to survive. Whoever is there at the end of the race will have a fighting chance.”

Second in the 20-car ST field was Pierre Kleinubing in the No. 75 C360R Audi S3 with a lap of 2:05.398, followed by Derek Jones in the No. 73 Mini JCW, with a lap of 2:05.794.

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Fifty-five IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship entries take to the grid in, coincidentally, the 55th edition of the Rolex 24 At Daytona. There are four classes, two of them Prototype and Prototype Challenge, both populated by purpose-built race cars that resemble street cars only in passing.

The other two classes are both GT – that stands for “Grand Touring” or “Gran Turismo,” in Italian. There are 11 GT Le Mans entries, which are primarily factory-supported. And there are 27 GT Daytona entries, the largest class in the field. Both GT Daytona and GT Le Mans cars are based on production cars, so GT competitors look very much like the street-going models they are based on.

We’ll take a look at the GT field today, and tomorrow, we’ll preview the Prototypes.

For casual fans, GT may take a little getting used to: Some cars run in both the GT and GT Le Mans classes – an example would be the Porsche 911 and the Ferrari 488. We once asked a competitor what the difference between a GT Daytona and GT Le Mans car, and he replied, “About a half a million dollars.”

The GT Le Mans cars are more sophisticated than the GT Daytona cars, but what once was a substantial performance gap between the two classes is narrowing. Yes, there may be Porsche 911s and Ferrari 488s running in both GT Le Mans and GT Daytona, but count on the GT Le Mans models to be significantly faster.

Speaking of the Porsche 911, that’s the big news in GT Le Mans for 2017. Daytona marks the premiere of the Porsche 911 RSR, which was first shown to the public at the Los Angeles Auto Show. While it resembles the last-generation 911, this RSR has the six-cylinder engine moved closer to the front, from its traditional rear-engine configuration. It’s been called a mid-engine car now, which may be a bit of a stretch, but moving the engine forward should improve the overall balance of the RSR, as ideally, a race car should have 50 percent of the weight on the front, and 50 percent on the rear. The engine shift will help the RSR in that regard.

While the other GT Le Mans entries haven’t undergone such dramatic surgery, the Ferrari, Corvette, BMW and Ford teams have not been standing still. Especially the Ford Chip Ganassi Ford GTs, which made their world competition debut at the 2016 Rolex 24 At Daytona, then went on to a class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, 50 years after the Ford GT won Le Mans outright.

Ganassi fields four Ford GTs, two in North America, and two in Europe. This year, all four Ford GTs will be in attendance, as the company very much wants a Rolex 24 win on the car’s resume, right beside the Le Mans victory.

This year, of the 11 entries in the class, there are two Chevrolet Corvette C7.Rs, two BMW M6 GTLMs, two Porsche 911 RSRs and a lone Ferrari 488 GTE. You can make a case that, in general, some of the GT Le Mans teams may be the most experienced, the most professional of any class on the grid. Corvette Racing team has been together a long time – there are people still with the team that were there in 1999 for the Corvette C5.R’s debut at Daytona.

The biggest difference since then? There was a time when teams worked hard on race strategy, perhaps sending out one car to run flat-out for as long as possible, while the other entry takes it much easier, saving the car, hoping to be in contention for a late-race dash to the checkered flag, theoretically the tortoise passing the crashed and broken hares. No longer.

“It’s an all-out, full-speed battle, every minute of the 24 hours,” said Doug Fehan, Corvette Racing program manager, and the man in charge of the Corvette team – since that 1999 Daytona debut. Count on some close, brutal racing in the GT Le Mans class.

If you’re looking for more widespread changes in the GT ranks, then you’re looking at the GT Daytona class for 2017. Last year’s rules change that made the class a home for cars built to international GT3 specifications has resulted in interest from multiple manufacturers.

The GT3 class is raced in about 50 series around the world, and that has resulted in substantial interest by manufacturers, who realized they could build and sell GT3 cars profitably with a moderate investment, since One Size Fits All. The rules are essentially the same in multiple series, which gives owners of GT3 cars some security regarding resale value of their cars, knowing that they won’t become obsolete in a season or two.

That manufacturer interest has made a big impact on the 2017 Rolex 24 At Daytona field, with three new manufacturers joining the WeatherTech Championship field for the entire season, debuting at Daytona.

Acura will be racing its new NSX with a two-car team, as will Lexus, heading to Daytona with a pair of new RC F GT3s. There are three Mercedes AMG GT3s, which are not new to GT3 racing, but are new to the WeatherTech Championship. All three cars could be contenders: Michael Shank Racing, which fielded a winning Honda-powered Prototype last season, is now in charge of the Acura initiative. The Lexus team is headed by former Trans-Am champion Paul Gentilozzi, and a solid driver lineup led by Scott Pruett, who at 56 may be the most experienced and definitely is the winningest driver in the field, with five overall and 10 class wins at Daytona.

The Mercedes teams have enlisted Riley Technologies and its legendary president, Bill Riley, to manage the team, which are really three separate entries: Former Dodge Viper racer Ben Keating needed a new car to race since Dodge discontinued the Viper, and he turned to Mercedes, mostly because his co-driver, Jeroen Bleekemolen, had raced the Mercedes in Europe and loved it.

The second Mercedes team is the WeatherTech entry, which moved over from Porsche during the off-season. The team is backed by company founder David MacNeil and will be co-driven for the full season by his son, Cooper MacNeil, and Gunnar Jeannette, with Australian Supercars reigning champion Shane van Gisbergen and AMG factory driver Thomas Jaeger completing the Daytona lineup. And the third Mercedes entry is the SunEnergy1 Racing car led by Kenny Habul, an Australian businessman who is the president of SunEnergy1, a leading producer of solar energy products.

With or without the seven new cars, competition in GT Daytona is impossible to handicap. Last year, the brand-new Lamborghini Huracán GT3 was the fastest car in the class, but teething pains kept the Lambo teams out of victory lane. This year, there are eight Lamborghinis in the field, and with a year of development they could be the favorites, especially the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini, which did find victory lane late in the 2016 season.

And the Porsche, Aston Martin, Audi (the R8 LMS GT3 is very similar beneath the skin to the Lamborghini Huracán), BMW and Ferrari teams will do all they can to defeat the newcomers. There are some very experienced drivers and teams in this class, as well as some relatively inexperienced competitors, which is one of multiple reasons why the Rolex 24 is so fascinating: At 4 a.m., you may have a driver who had never seen Daytona until this year, exhausted after that initial adrenalin rush has worn off, fighting to stay alert as a herd of Prototypes driven by career racers flash by, lapping the track 10 seconds faster.

There are two kinds of winners in the Rolex 24 At Daytona: The ones who actually cross the finish line first in their class, and all the other drivers and teams that manage to hold it all together for all 24 hours, even if they finish 50 laps behind the winners.

There’s a very good chance that the closest racing will be within the two GT classes. And this may be the strongest lineup ever in these classes.

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Popular sports car racer Memo Gidley is returning to Daytona International Speedway this week, three years after he was injured in a heavy crash during the third hour of the 2014 Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Gidley and his wife, Mari, are attending the 55th Rolex 24 At Daytona on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 28-29, as guests of IMSA. Gidley will participate in a media availability on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. in the Daytona International Speedway media center, and also plans to visit with doctors and staff later this week at Halifax Health Medical Center, where he was transported after the incident and spent several days undergoing treatment for his injuries.

“Daytona is a special place for me and I’ve been wanting to get back as soon as I was healed,” Gidley said.

“It’s been a long recovery journey, and a big part of my motivation was to be here now. The healing has gone so well and I’ve been cleared by doctors to drive again.

“I’m looking forward to saying ‘thank you’ to so many people that were part of helping me when I was injured."

"IMSA and everybody associated with this race gave me a lot of support and I want to say thanks. Even though many have been in contact on email or over the phone,"

"I haven’t seen them in person for three years. When you work to help somebody, it’s always nice to see how it ended up, and I want them to see how strong I am and that I’m back."

"I also hope that my recovery can inspire anybody else dealing with something similar.”

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When the 2017 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship kicks off with the Rolex 24 At Daytona at the end of the month, central Ohio race fans will have double the reason to cheer as two central-Ohio based sports car teams will collaborate to support a brand new racing program.

Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian has been tabbed to spearhead Acura Motorsports’ return to IMSA racing in 2017, and the Marysville-based HART Racing team will focus on supporting Michael Shank Racing in the all-new Acura program.

HART Racing (Honda of America Racing Team), a longtime competitor in the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Series with the Honda Civic, is taking the 2017 season to learn more about the Acura NSX GT3 by working with Michael Shank Racing which fields a two-car Acura NSX GT3 effort in the GTD class. Each of HART Racing’s team members are full-time employees of Honda R&D in Raymond, Ohio and Honda of America Manufacturing in Marysville, Ohio and each has worked on the development of the production NSX.

The Honda-based HART Racing team, a program that operates with a dedicated group of volunteers, is located just on the other side of Columbus, Ohio from Michael Shank Racing.

With the NSX starting production in the Marysville plant in June, the geographical advantages were clear to all as the collaboration was established.

As HART works to develop plans to race with the Acura NSX GT3 in the future, the team will step away from competition in the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge to take on a new and important role in 2017 as it integrates into the support program with Michael Shank Racing for the new Acura Motorsports effort in IMSA WeatherTech competition.

Meanwhile, the relationship is mutually beneficial for Michael Shank Racing team owner Mike Shank, who has added four very experienced and skilled members to the Shank stable.

Chad Gilsinger is a senior member of HART Racing and has performed many roles including driver of the No. 93 Honda Civic Si. Gilsinger has driven for HART since 2002 and in the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge since 2012. He has claimed three poles, five wins, 15 podiums and finished second in the championship last year.

“From my job responsibilities at Honda R&D I have many years of experience working on chassis areas related to vehicle dynamics,” said Gilsinger. “My main goal is to help out with chassis related items where I can and use this experience to learn more about the NSX GT3 car so I can better support the testing and confirmation during production with Honda R&D and PMC (Performance Manufacturing Center, the plant where the NSX is built). I was one of the key development drivers for the street car and this will help me better link the production car to the race car in the future. I will also be taking notes from the Michael Shank Racing drivers and looking at future video and data throughout the season so I will have a better understanding of the car's character from a driver point of view.”

Kurt Baker, who serves as the Team Manager for HART Racing, has a main role with Michael Shank Racing in providing the link between PMC and the race program and will also be right in the heart of the pit lane action as he has been integrated into the team’s race day pit stops. Kurt was one of the lead engineers responsible for production startup for the NSX.

Andrew Salzano serves as the HART Racing Crew Chief and initially worked with Michael Shank Racing to tune the Electronic Power Steering System (EPS). After having recently moved into a steering test role at Honda R&D, the work provided good hands-on experience. Salzano will collect and control video for the No. 86 Acura NSX GT3 as well as assist with the team during race day pit stops. The role will give Salzano the opportunity to observe the Michael Shank Racing Crew Chiefs and pick up on the important information necessary for running in the GTD class.

Tyler Chambers, the lead mechanic for HART Racing, is continuing to work as a mechanic at Michael Shank Racing. He will serve as a tire changer on the No. 93 Acura NSX GT3 during pit stops. Having worked on the NSX production team, Chambers will be able to take what he learns from the racing program and bring it back to the production side.

“With our team being an Ohio company and the street NSX being built here, this is another cool part of that story with HART coming in to help us and learn as much as they can,” said Michael Shank Racing Team Owner Mike Shank. “Doing all the testing that they have, they already know the street NSX like the back of their hands and they all have racing experience that will be a big benefit to our effort so I’m really happy that this came together. It is a very big project to launch an all-new car in this GTD class so having HART be a part of the effort is helping us cover more ground, quickly."

 

         

 

 

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