Rate the race: Rolex 24 at Daytona (TUSC)

[ArnageWRC]

I gave it a 7, as I'm feeling generous, and it's the first race of a 'new era' for US Sportscar racing.
The GT's are fine, but I have a major problem with the DP/ P2 BoP......

Finally, the joke of a Yellow flag, and the 'penalty'.... I hope this is a one off, and not the norm.

Oh, and get RLM in and quick......

[Brake dust]

Always enjoy watching the Rolex 24. Its the dead of winter - so I can spend most of the day watching the race. DVRed the race so that I could fast forward through all of the commercials!

Very interested in watching the GTLM class. Liked the variety in GTD class.

Just don't like IMSA/NASCAR rules. Too many full course cautions. Don't like the pit wall and how cars need to go behind the wall for major repairs. IMSA needs to adapt FIA rules.

[pdxracefan]

I have very mixed feelings about the race. On the one hand, it's the first race of the merged series, management and cars, so I expected a fair amount of teething problems. On the other, was really disappointed to see at what I first thought were bonehead decisions by race control, then realized they were probably intentional and not mistakes at all. Too much Nascar and not enough sports car; I expected that management would take a middle of the road approach now having the two series together, but I think I was wrong on that part. i do hope they continue to work on the BoP in the P class because the P2 cars deserve better. Like others, the tediously long yellows, The Joke that is MRN, the avoidable contact rule that was wielded like a scythe, and yes the PC class needs to go and be it's own support series. Just disappointed that they chose to not run the 24 like a true endurance race but rather the Daytona 500 x 4.75.

And yes I am, as always, really looking forward to my favorite race, Sebring in March.

[bortall]

After a 5 (or so) hour nap, I woke up to watch the end - then wished I hadn't bothered.
It left a sour taste in the mouth, apart from that the race wasn't so bad. The coverage well that is another story!

[cobraRed01]

I'll give it a generous 7/10. Great cars...great teams...great racing (when they were racing) some new tech. Coverage could have been worse...but not by much. As a Comcast subscriber having been blocked by Fox from watching Live FIA on Speed2...I had my doubts...and still do...but was happy not to get iced again. No HD on FS2 for me.

Full course yellows suck. Ending was a travesty of justice. If they are pulling yellows to make for a photo finish they can stick it...not what racing is all about. Would NASCAR pull such a stunt? Naaaah.

RE DP vs. LMP2 BoP...won't this balance out better on tracks were aero is a bigger advantage.

I think this series has a chance to evolve nicely if they can balance real racing with the need to pull in a larger audience. Now there's the Rub.

[Mechanic Z]

Was not a good race.
Not impressed with #thefuture

[Breitling24]

FS1 acronym for "Fox Sucks 1"

[Gingers4Justice]

7/10.

I'm not here to judge the coverage. That's something different - but I completely agree with those lamenting the loss of RLM. At least I'll appreciate them more at Silverstone.

As for the BoP? It's still too early to tell. Daytona is a very different beast to other tracks and if they have got the BoP right then actually, the P2 teams should probably be a bit slower anyway. I'd be asking questions if the P2 teams, having never been to Daytona before, could keep up with the experienced teams over 24 hours. It's the sort of event where know-how sets you apart.

The wave-bys are a shame. Not my kind of racing. I still enjoyed it, and there was enough to keep me interested.

The race wasn't dull. A solid 7/10.

[David Land]

For me the rating is a 6/10 in the most general sense an enjoyable but forgettable race for 23.5 hours, but the score has acquired a few penalties that dropped my score dramatically in the last .5 hours.

-.5 point for the botched BoP, it was close but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades

-.5 point for the coverage, made it hard to watch and MRN made it worse.

-1 point for the NASCAR yellow

-1 point for stealing the win from Level 5

Final score: 3/10

[MagVanisher]

Too much commercials for MRN (not to mention saying the PLM wrong), as it seems that the DPs are too dominating. Therefore, it's a 4 for me.

Next time, this car dominance will not happen again once they returned to Sebring.

[fjn356]

Tudor is to WEC as Nascar is to DTM. I gave it a 3 although I did not watch much.

[Pandemonium]

Hahaha do not compare the wec with this. I felt like following a ghost race. What a joke. Oak racing and company wasting money if you ask me. What a great quote from the guy above me.

[Lagunaseca_4life]

Originally Posted by Pandemonium

Hahaha do not compare the wec with this. I felt like following a ghost race. What a joke. Oak racing and company wasting money if you ask me. What a great quote from the guy above me.

They were in third in the middle of the night, up until their alternator issue they were running great.and the charged back to 8th overall.

The top dps ran cleaner races period and had less time spent in the pits. Isn't that how Audi wins Le Mans?After the top dps the next three cars were p2s who did not have clean trouble free races!

The p2s were out numbered period,I think if it was an even number of p2/dps on the grid it would of looked different.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by fjn356

Tudor is to WEC as Nascar is to DTM. I gave it a 3 although I did not watch much.

Long time no post, glad to have you back.

[Holt]

If we're going to give a 4/10 to the race because some feel BoP was off in the prototype class, then lets give a 3/10 to every single 24 Hours of Le Mans race that featured a diesel Audi prototype.

The #42 was running competitively and passing DPs (yes it was passing DPs on track) even at the end of the race. Why was the ALMS champion so far off pace compared to it? Also ESM? The Deltawing was kicking most of their butts.

The race gets a 7/10 from me. I wanted to see the P2 cars mix it up with the DPs for competition's sake, not because I hate DP. But that was something unrealistic to expect from their first race. You're talking about 2 teams used to only racing eachother suddenly going against 10 teams all with top of the line engineers and drivers and resources on a track that favors top speed more then handling. It was going to happen.

PC needs to go away to make room for other entries

I was disappointed with the nutrition in GTLM. It literally came down to who had the least trouble not necessarily who was the fastest, even though you could say the 911 had enough speed to hang with anyone.

GT Daytona got overshadowed by the GTLM class. Hopefully next year there is only 3 classes so each class gets more TV time.

Again, a 7/10. I do wish they find a solution to the caution issue. Because the cautions are handled the way they are, then they need to have the wave around or else it would almost be impossible to earn a lap back.

But how do you retrieve a stranded car without going full course caution? This isnt Europe where racecars are allowed to race by Marshalls at 100mph. Remember what happened to that car Gidley hit? Imagine a Marshall getting hit like that. The chances of that happening needs to stay at 0. And this isnt 9 miles of Le Mans, its a 3.5 mile track with more cars.

Just enforce a code 60 and let that be the end of it.

[skycafe]

I gave it a 3. The term "orchestrated" came up last night in the race thread, and that seems to fit well. I had hope, I don't think I do anymore.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by fjn356

Tudor is to WEC as Nascar is to DTM. I gave it a 3 although I did not watch much.

DTM is absolutely horrendous though.

[Chris Draper]

I hear a good analogy. When Lexus launched, they didn't want owners to think they bought a Toyota. Maybe TUSC should bury the Nascar "stuff" a little bit.

Here's my opinion:

TV Broadcast: 5/10 - Qualifying was not available anywhere (even online). I give them kudos for putting the first 2 hours of the race on FOX, but switching between 4 different channels/online was ridiculous. Commentators carried over from Grand-Am are not my cup of tea (as well as many others)

Radio Broadcast: 0/10 - MRN had no coverage of the Roar/Practice/or Qualifying. Lack of sportscar knowledge was painful, and the number of times Nascar references were mentioned was comical.

Social Media: 10/10 - This is one thing the series has going for them.

Race Control: 7/10 - Other than the last 20 minutes of the race, the calls were ok. Not perfect, but ok.

Quality of Field: 10/10 - No question

Quality of Racing: 9/10 - A lot of good racing. A lot of small issues hit a lot of top teams

Initial BoP: 8/10: Have to give IMSA props, they did a good job. I don't think ANYONE thought a year ago that this was possible. That being said, there is still room for improvement.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by skycafe

I gave it a 3. The term "orchestrated" came up last night in the race thread, and that seems to fit well. I had hope, I don't think I do anymore.

#sportscarutainment

[jasonjessica09]

The race itself was good. Knocked down to 7 due to external factors: 1)Memo Gidley's injury 2) heard Tv coverage was bad (I was at the race) 3) And obviously the way the yellow/red flags were handled. Its not just the phantom yellow at the end that was a fiasco, it was the handling of the red flag after the crash site was cleaned out. Why did it take so long to figure out who lined up where.

IMSA has a lot of work to do to sort out their officiating. A grade of "F" goes to the race officials for sure! An "A" to all the fans including me who turned out to the race. I did not get to watch as much of it as I hoped as I had a wife and a 2 year old to look after and a plane flight delay Saturday morning but it was fun still though. Watching the race from the grandstands is great and I got spoiled to get to see so much of the race track.

[kbeech]

Race was meh. The coverage would have been hard to follow if I had not recorded it and fast forward through the many many many many many commericals. I work midshift so I couldn't watch it live. Look, I get it. Commercials pay the bills, but that was excessive. Lots of cautions, most were legit. The one that stood out that wasn't was that last one. It reeked of NASCAR racertainment. The Ferrari got ripped off. That Lucky Dog crap has to go also. Frankly they should just go the GT route; GTLM and GTD. Won't happen but just an opinion. DPs just don't excite. I'm not really all that crazy about P2s. I often forget about the PCs. As for Sebring, well I'll probably watch it. Or not. Right now I'm leaning on no. We'll see in March.

[Baigu]

Gave it 7, wanted to give it a 6 because of that last fake yellow/safety car & penalty to Level 5 Ferrari.
I was expecting a better race. But still enjoyed it

[Mal]

I enjoyed much of it - but the last half hour left a bad taste, from which I hope they learn their lesson. Ok they got the BOP wrong and unsurprisingly it was in the DP's favour, but Sebring is a different track where the tables will be turned in terms of knowledge and historical data so lets wait and see what that brings.

The TV production was poor as it was massively DP focused and commentators made me realize how good RLM is, mainly due to their depth of knowledge of the sport.

In the end though the lasting memory will be the farcical finish - this was endurance racing, but ultimately we had a staged managed 23 hour 50 minute qualifying session followed by a 10 minute sprint race.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by fjn356

Tudor is to WEC as Nascar is to DTM.

So both the WEC and Tudor are dull close-to-spec series that are well past their prime, take themselves far too seriously and race at some of the worst tracks in the world with their major strength being driver talent?

[Peat]

Regardless of the GTD reversal, i still found it an unsatisfactory ending. But, overall i enjoyed the event as a whole.

The race never really developed a level of intrigue until the final few hours, not helped that i couldn't help but fear the worst for poor Memo Gidley. That was horrific.

Can't help that feel that WTR had the wrong guy in the car for the finish. Angelelli just didn't have anything for Barbosa. J.Taylor was on a mission in that car this weekend, so perhaps having him in at the flag would have been a better strategy.

The bitter pill (aside from the crash) was the cynical late caution and the clusterf***of the GTD result. That Porsche hadn't even made it to the tyre wall and the yellow was already flying high. It was so contrived that it felt like a complete slap in the face after having watched all the televised feed from the race for the last 24hrs...

Then, 'that penalty'. How on earth can a steward of sound mind make such a pivotal decision on a knee-jerk? The call was made all of 4 corners after the incident, before any replays had aired. It was so marginal and had such big consequences, surely a 5min review would have saved the 5hrs of embarrassment?

Anyway, as much as i despise Scott Tucker, i feel bad for them that they couldn't have their moment on the podium. They grafted hard for it and they have to accept a quiet pat on the back in an empty press-room.

Ah well. Hopefully we can move on and enjoy the rest of the series.