What to watch for at the Rolex 24

The RVs are moving in, the Daytona International Speedway infield is filling up, and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship teams are ready to get through two more days of on-track action before the start of the 62nd Rolex 24 At Daytona. Fifty-nine cars are slated to start the race that begins at 1:40pm on Saturday and finishes 24 hours later. But that’s only the beginning of the tale. Wrapped in that overall story arc are hundreds of subplots, each a fascinating allegory in its own right. Here are a few of them.

Star power: The aces of sports car racing are certainly stars. But guys like Jordan Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, Nick Tandy, Pipo Derani and Ryan Dalziel are preaching to the choir, so to speak. Drawing new eyes to endurance sports car racing are the drivers from other disciplines — IndyCar, Formula 1 and NASCAR. This race draws them all.

Some, like Josef Newgarden, who joins Porsche Penske Motorsport in the No. 7 963, are relatively new to this side of the sport. On the other hand, Scott Dixon is an old hand at this, having done his first endurance sports car race 24 years ago. While he notes moving back and forth between IndyCar and sports cars isn’t as easy as it used to be given the current crop of more complex GTP machinery, he relishes the chance to jump into the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R fielded by his IndyCar Series team, Chip Ganassi Racing.

“It’s always the competition. I think it’s always very difficult … I’ve done plenty of these Daytonas and only won four them,” Dixon says, as if four victories at Daytona is nothing. “What is tricky is that you can go to bed, you might be leading by a lap, and you wake up and you’re 10 laps down or be in the situation where you have the failure. So many times I think we’ve had races here where you think it’s gonna be a good race and you definitely have a shot at winning, and it can be taken away pretty quickly. So a lot of times, it’s the disappointment that drives you.”

In all, 15 NTT IndyCar Series are scheduled to participate in the Rolex 24, most in GTP or LMP2. Three former Formula 1 drivers are on the entry list, including Romain Grosjean who falls into both open-wheel categories and will drive the No. 60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 in GTD PRO; Jenson Button in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 in GTP, and Felipe Massa in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports ORECA in LMP2. In addition, a few NASCAR stars are set to compete in the Michelin Pilot Challenge Race on Friday in the No. 23 Smooge Racing Toyota Supra GT4 Evo – Bubba Wallace, John Hunter Nemechek and Corey Heim.

A record number of woman racers: Nine women are slated to race in the Rolex 24, a record for female participation. That include the four women in the Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 in GTD — Rahel Frey, Sarah Bovy, Michele Gatting and Doriane Pin. Pin missed the Roar Before the 24 last weekend because the 20-year-old from France was racing in the Formula 4 UAE championship, with a best finish of sixth. Gradient Racing returns with Sheena Monk and Katherine Legge, who qualified the No. 66 Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 third, now with Tatiana Calderon joining the team for endurance races. Ashton Harrison is racing with Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti for its new GTD program with a Lamborghini, and Lilou Wadoux is in the No. 88 Richard Mille AF Corse ORECA in LMP2.

But that’s only the 24-hour race. Taylor Hagler will be in the Michelin Pilot Challenge event on Friday with Bryan Herta Autosports, and Whelen Engineering MX-5 Cup has two women drivers, Sally Mott and Heather Hadley. If you then go into the women on crews, in engineering, team and manufacturer management… well, it’s a very long list.

Pit palaces: The days of strategists sitting on top of a rolling tool box with a stopwatch and a clipboard are long gone. Today’s pit stalls are big enough to house a family of four.