Filed under: Motorsports, Audi, Racing



This year is the 52nd edition of the Daytona 24 Hours. The 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona is also the first race of the year in the brand new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship (TUSSC) With the merger of the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series rewriting and revising the rules of American sports car racing right up until yesterday, we've made the journey to an intermittently wet and constantly freezing Daytona Beach, Florida with Audi to watch the new R8 LMS and every other competitor explore the limits of those rules on the track.

With a ton to cover - and a couple of videos below to watch, including some slo-mo qualifying footage and a hot lap in an R8 LMS - let's not waste time with chit-chat, eh?

Quick things to know about the classes and the leader-light system:

Driver Classes: Two classes in each racing category are Pro and Pro-Am. The Pro class is composed of professional driver line-ups and its cars use red markings on the windscreen, number placard, rear wing endplate and leader light. Pro-Am has driver line-ups that are a mix of pros and amateurs and cars in this class use blue markings instead of red.

Pro Racing Classes
Prototype (eight entries): Daytona Prototypes, LMP2 cars and the DeltaWing Coupe
GT Le Mans (GTLM, 11 entries): Aston Martin V8 Vantage, BMW Z4 GTE, Corvette C7.R, Ferrari 458 Italia, Porsche 911 RSR and SRT Viper GTS-R

Pro-Am Racing Classes
Prototype Challenge (nine entries): Spec cars with Oreca chassis and Chevrolet engines
GT-Daytona (GTD, 29 entries): Aston Martin V12 Vantage, Audi R8 LMS, BMW Z4, Ferrari 458 Italia, Porsche 911 GT America

For the long-form reading there's this Mega Guide with a breakdown of class changes and blurbs on every one of the 67 teams entered. The SparkNotes version comes via Andy Blackmore's typically awesome Spotter's Guide. For the 'Before' picture check out the full entry list, for the 'Middle' picture check out the full qualifying order, and for the 'End' of affairs, well, we'll be back tomorrow with a race recap. And for Corvette and Viper fans, Racer magazine put together free, downloadable pdf issues on the Chevrolet Racing and SRT Motorsports.

How to watch/listen:
Race starts at 2:10 pm EST today
Fox Sports 1 coverage runs from 2-4 pm ET, that switches to Fox Sports 2 from 4-9 pm EST, and back to Fox Sports 1 from 7 am to 3 pm on Sunday
Overnight streaming and full-race radio and live timing can be found from 9 pm to 7 am EST at www.IMSA.comContinue reading Notes and notations on the 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona [w/video]

Notes and notations on the 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 25 Jan 2014 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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