fuztupnz

iTrader: (4)

I feel ya wcs.

RIWWP

iTrader: (2)

Hmm, 6 round B-spec Grand-Am class.... sounds quite nice

Guessing 2s, Fits, etc...

York

Where's our 20 hour update, Al?

fuztupnz

iTrader: (4)

meh, A class of small fwd cars would just make me sad.

Cars pulling 2:30's or slower at Daytona would be boring as hell to watch imho.

fuztupnz

iTrader: (4)

bomarito is putting in some pretty good lap times right now and looks to be closing in on the 6th place car.

York

Looks like he's back in 8th

fuztupnz

iTrader: (4)

yeah

Chad D.

iTrader: (19)

reading back....
fuz, let's not forget that Mazda has their Mazda speed training ladder program, they send a fully stocked Mazdaspeed trailer full of parts to each race, and have their own "races". Many of the drivers that I have met, ie:Patron Ferrarri, Corvette, the drivers have been fully trained by Mazda the whole way but chose to race for another team because their chances of winning are better. Like racing with one of the baggillion porches that are out there. Their is a reason for all the porshes, the advantage, like you guys have said, probably won't be "evened out" because so much funding to G-A comes from them. Mazda keeps it within Mazda. just my 2c.
I love 911's but f-n hate seing a sea of them and just a couple fords/chevy/mazda's out there.

York

It does bring me great joy to see that the best (and only?) Mustang only made it 256 laps though

serothis

bomarito back up to 7th in gt class

holzer with alex job racing went from 8th to 6th then fell back to 8th

edit: I spoke too soon...

York

yep, and over 20 seconds behind #7 :\

fuztupnz

iTrader: (4)

Inside the last 2 hours. Now the craziness starts.

RIWWP

iTrader: (2)

Interesting race for a few reasons, but relatively uneventful, which isn't common.

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

I have 2 predictions. First, the Porches will receive a competition adjustment. Second, for the rest of the season, Speedsource will have 2 cars in competition. For this race, they had 4 drivers. These will be split into two teams. The #70 car and the former #69 car. The numbers #68 & 69 are taken, so they will use #71.

fuztupnz

iTrader: (4)

I agree with al's prediction for the season.

Great effort by all of the mazda teams. At least one car from each team was consistant and ran well. The p cars were just way faster.

The race overall was probably the cleanest i've seen in quite a while. Very few cautions and no one really taking others out of the race. The ford powered DP cars were amazingly fast. Should be a good season in DP this year with the 01 car having some real competition.

I have to give props to the ferrari GT teams. Even though only one car was really in the hunt for a win, they made a great showing with a new car in the class. They will definitely be some serious competition throughout the season.

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

I disagree with you slightly. There was a lot of cautions, however half were caused by the Audi's. If it wasn't for the R8's, it would have been a much better race.

RIWWP

iTrader: (2)

I find myself rooting for the R8s this year. Their clutch issues are probably going to be resolved (since apparently it is a clutch system from the OEM AWD drivetrain and not optimized for the RWD race car) by the next race in a few months. Even if it isn't they shouldn't have the issues in a 2:30hr to 2:45hr race that they were seeing in the 24hr.

I find myself thinking "it's about time!" regarding their entry into Grand-Am.

The over-night commentator's discussion about the Nissan / GT-Academy / Playstation team is probably right too. They figured that Nissan will have a car in Grand-Am by the end of the year.


Bring on the diversity



(And the next rotary plz. Before the 8s can't run any more)

Striker-7

iTrader: (3)

I'll have to respectfully disagree. The 69 was sponsored by its 'gentleman driver', Emil Assentato and the company he owns, FDDX. Castrol is a secondary sponsor now for the 70, it'll be damned hard to find a primary sponsor for this mythical 71 with the state of the economy. Look at the unsponsored DPs that were circulating during the 24, Spirit of Daytona #90 is out of pocket from the owner, and the Action Express cars were virtually "white bodies".

My hat is off to Joe Sahlen. Running three cars in the 24, regardless if two were effectively "start and parks", that takes a lot of hot dogs to subsidize. I was rooting for the 42 all night long, it had better pace than even the Speedsource car. That is one magical chassis underneath the 42's skin (was the 2009/2010 Speedsource 70 that won the 24).

Striker-7

iTrader: (3)

You're being kind. Half of the cautions were caused by *A* R8, the Oryx #74!

msumlin

First off the #71 is not available and there will not be a 2nd car in the SpeedSource stable, as Sahlen will run all three cars at some point doing the season. The biggest issue that the Mazda's had was our lap times, compared to the Porsche's. With all of the competition adjustments made to the RX8's after 2010, it did not even the playing field out, it put us behind our competition. I know for a fact that the higher ups at Mazdaspeed were "embarrassed" being on the world stage with such a lackluster performance. The #70 cars had perfect pit stops, even better than in the years that they won the race and could not do better than 6th place and the #40 car had to battle to get 10th and the #42 car to finish 12th, all of those cars are top three cars!

Porsche got to use the 3.8L motor and get larger rear tires, Camaro dropped 150 pounds, we lost RPM's and weight was added to the RX-8. Time to go back to the status quo, eliminate the added weight and get the RPMS back to 9,000 to be fair, or us being competitive again!