THE LINE

January 16, 2013

(John Thawley  ~  Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com  ~ 248.227.0110)
The “Roar Before the Rolex 24” at Daytona International Speedway - the dress rehearsal for the 51st running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona - took place this past weekend and Michael Valiante (No. 6 Ford-Riley) set fastest lap of the three-day test. Valiante posted a lap of 1 minute, 42.058 seconds/125.576 mph to pace the 17-car DP entry. “I feel everyone hasn’t shown everything they’ve got at this point, but I’m confident we’ll be strong when we come back for the Rolex 24,” said Valiante, who will join Chris Cumming, Jorge Goncalves and Gustavo Yacaman in the No. 6. Dane Cameron (No. 42 Team Sahlen’s BMW-Riley ) turned a lap of 1:42.101/125.523 on Saturday and it stood up as the second-fastest time of the weekend. Cameron's co-drivers will be Wayne Nonnamaker, Simon Pagenaud and Bruno Junqueira. AJ Allmendinger was third-fastest in the 2012-Daytona-winning No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Ford-Riley. He was joined at the test by John Pew, Marcos Ambrose and Justin Wilson. Ozz Negri – recovering from a bicycle accident in training – hopes to return to the team for the race. Patrick Long led the GT class in his first drive in the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche GT3 to be co-driven by Patrick Lindsey, Jason Hart, Spencer Pumpelly and Daniel Graeff, running a lap of 1:48.569/118.045. The season opener for the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series will be held on Jan. 26-27, with practice beginning on Wednesday, Jan. 23. Live SPEED coverage begins at 3 p.m. ET on Saturday, Jan. 26. We're pleased and proud to be able to feature John Thawley's brilliant photographic work again this season. Check out John's scintillating images from the weekend here. - PMD

Editor-in-Chief's Note: From the "Path of Least Resistance" File comes word that the brain trust behind the acquisition of the American Le Mans Series by NASCAR's Grand-Am series - oh, excuse me, the "merger" - has come up with a plan for the class structure for the unified series (name T.B.D.) that will go into effect for the 2014-2015 seasons. And the news is... well, there is no news, because the unified series is basically going to eliminate the ALMS P1 class and allow everything else to run, which was so predictable that I basically said that's exactly what would happen when the "merger" was announced. They took months to come up with this? Wow. The details? Grand-Am’s DP and the ALMS’ P2 classes will combine into one, headlining a prototype class that also will include the DeltaWing prototype, with performance of the cars balanced to maintain close competition. The ALMS’ Prototype Challenge (PC) class for spec prototypes will continue to run as a separate class. Both of the organizations’ production-based GT classes will continue as separate, distinct categories based on performance, "preserving each class’ proud history and loyal fan following," according to the release. Cough, hack... really? As part of this plan, the ALMS’ GTC cars will join the Grand-Am GTs. And the Grand-Am's new GX class, which is debuting at this year’s Rolex 24 later this month, is being explored as a possible addition to the Grand-Am half of the GT mix in 2014-15. There also is the possibility that GX will run separately as a fifth class. Oh, joy. The Bottom Line? Grand-Am gives up nothing, and they're going to hang on to their classes for nostalgia reasons because, well, they bought the ALMS lock, stock and Road Atlanta plus Sebring, remember? And since there are no new P2 teams in the works and the ones that were engaged in P2 before the "merger" are seriously contemplating other racing avenues, guess what? Don't be surprised that by 2014 the Grand-Am's DPs are the top "prototype" class, which would be a joke of momentous proportion. Given everything that has transpired and given the players involved, I expected exactly as much. But the reality of it still flat-out stinks. - PMD

Editor-in-Chief's Note: Check out Michelin's racing website - "Michelin Alley" - and get in on all of the behind-the-scenes buzz. Go here. - PMD 

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