By John Lamm
There was a time when the 24-hour sports-car race at Daytona International Speedway was something of an oddity. We loved it for being the first serious race of the year, but it also was like the poor step child of the Daytona 500. The crowds were okay, but not crushing. Not anymore. These days the infield is crammed with fans, the grid walk before the start a mass of well-wishers straining to see the likes of Dario Franchitti or Juan Pablo Montoya. The 2013 entry list ran to 57 race cars in three classes: the Daytona Prototypes running for the overall win, 34 GTs ready to duke it out, plus a small-but-new class, the GX cars.
Top dogs were, of course, the DP cars, which are not only fast and wonderfully noisy, but have a driver’s list that includes not just Grand-Am heroes like Scott Pruett and Alex Gurney, but some from IndyCars—Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Paul Tracy, and newly-crowned champ Ryan Hunter-Reay—and NASCAR’s Montoya, Jamie McMurray, and Marcos Ambrose.
Cool, but what also makes you smile are the GTs, the cars we often hunger after for the road. Porsche once owned this class—and there were 18 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars entered this year—but now Audi and Ferrari have stepped up with their R8 Grand-Ams and 458s. Throw in a handful of Corvettes, a Viper, a Camaro, a pair of BMW M3s, and a hangover Mazda RX-8, all crowding each other, and it’s gotta make you smile.
Then there were the six GX machines, a fledgling class meant to draw new technology, which it did with the three Mazda 6s and their Skyactiv-D turbo-diesel engines. There also was a trio of Porsche Caymans, one—seen above—painted in the same colors and scheme as the Psychedelic Hippie 917L from the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Throw in that crowded infield with its Ferris wheel and fireworks and it’s quite an all-night party with decided overtones of wood smoke, barbecue, and beer.
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So who were the winners? Chip Ganassi’s team did it again, Pruett taking his fifth win, tying the legendary Hurley Haywood for most all time. Pruett’s teammates were Montoya, Dixon, Charlie Kimball, and Memo Rojas. Audi finished one-two in GT, the leading team being Filipe Albuquerque, Dion von Moltke, Oliver Jarvis, and Edoardo Mortara. Porsche took the GX win thanks to David Donohue, Jim Norman, Shane Lewis, and Nelson Canache in the Psychedelic Hippie Cayman.
Next year’s party promises to be even better with the integration of Grand-Am and the American Le Mans Series. Come to think of it, the infield at Daytona would make for a legendary Super Bowl party.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Car & Driver
