TBK-Light.com

Welcome to the 2018 IMSA season. Starting with the longest race of the year, a twice around the clock test of speed, reliability, and teamwork set among the unique backdrop that is Daytona International Speedway.

Gone is the PC class from the main game, with no replacement. P sees a new manufacture in DPi equipment, with Roger Penske running the factory Acura cars. Visit Florida Racing returns to their former name, Spirit of Daytona and they're in a fourth Cadillac DPi-V.R. Performance-Tech, BAR1, and CORE have made the jumps from PC and GTD into the P ranks. The #99 Red Dragon returns, this time being run out of the JDC-Miller camp, which sees them expand to two cars, the other being the #85 Banana Boat. PR1-Mathiasen returns with their Ligier. ESM is back with two Nissan DPi's, the three Cadillac teams from last year return, although the lineups have been shuffled a bit. After missing the second half of the 2017 season, Mazda is back. This time without Speedsource, as they were given the boot. Team Joest will be running and developing the cars. Yes, that Team Joest.

GTLM sees the normal cast of characters, with two full season cars entered by Corvette, Porsche, BMW, and Ford. Risi will enter a Ferarri GTE in select rounds. BMW has retired the M6 GTLM car for the new M8, which has had teething issues.

GTD sees the usual cast of characters. Michael Shank Racing has lost it's Acura backing and is now a pure privateer effort. They're running one car full season, the second if they can get funding. HART returns for the NAEC rounds with it's all volunteer crew in the #69(nice) NSX. Lexus returns with 2 cars, with the 2018 Rolex being Scott Pruett's final race professionally. WeatherTech Racing joins up with Scuderia Corsa and they will field two cars in the Rolex. Wright Motorsports moves over from Pirelli World Challenge to the IMSA series. Speaking of PWC, Magnus is also back, and they've got Andy Lally. One BMW for Tuner in Liqui-Moly colors.

Also joining the WSC stars and cars is IMSA's Continental Sports Car Challenge, who will take to the high banks for a 4 hour enduro. 31 GS cars are signed up, 5 ST, and 6 TCR cars, a new class for the series.

Those are the highlights, who will be crowned the winner after 24 grueling hours at the World Center of Racing? We will find out soon!

Rolex 24 TV Schedule(all times Eastern):
Saturday, Jan. 27
2 p.m.-5 p.m., FOX
5 p.m.-10 p.m., FS2
10 p.m.-11 p.m., FSGO
11 p.m.-1 a.m., Sunday, FS1

Sunday, Jan. 28
1 a.m.-8 a.m., FSGO
8 a.m.-10:30 a.m., FS1
10:30 a.m.-1 p.m., FSGO
1 p.m.-3 p.m., FS1

Race will be streamed in full on the IMSA website for those it applies to.

Essentials:

IMSA Radio

IMSA WSC/CTSCC Spotter Guide

Entry List for WSC(50 cars)

Entry List for CTSCC(43 cars)

Event Schedule(at bottom of page)

Daytona Beach, FL Weekend Weather

Event History

TBK Discord link

Track Layout

Track Graphics c/o RacingCircuits.info

Last Years Race:
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3


I'm heading down Thursday AM.

Pretty cool teaser.

Will be doing a game-jam at university. From friday to sunday. My initial plan is to not watch this live and for once trully enjoy the great online playback that the IMSA youtube channel provide. But it will be HARD to not peek saturday night into this.

Just last week I finally finished doing this scoring tab of the first TUDOR 24h of 2014. Always were curious to know a lot of things one can not watch only looking it live. Like what's happening in that 28 cars field of GTD. And following those who lost several laps on the pits, getting them back through wave arounds and stuff.

I tried to take note of the field before each yellow (the YF mark), 2 laps after the restart (the rs mark), then after 30min of green, 60, and then for each extra 60min of green. I wanted to do this for all IMSA races, but this way it's way to detailed. Gotta find a balance of how much to put into it and how much I can cope.... Each column can take up to 30min sometimes.

Penske livery:
http://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/pensk ... -liveries/

Penske scheme is kinda dull, IMO.

So looking forward to going back to the race.

_________________
"Many people ask me why I always sign off Till We Meet Again, because goodbye is always so final. Goodbye Dan Wheldon." -Marty Reid

Great article written by the one and only Dave Ellis.

http://theracingline.net/2018/imsa/wtsc ... -24-hours/

Remember the videos Magnus Racing has done before...

Weather for Sunday is looking like it's raining and the track will be WET

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

So it'll be dry then...

Mandatory reminder about the accuracy of local rain predictions (0.5-2 days max).

Of course I know that, just thought it was worth remarking

FWIW the rain didn't really help last year's event much either, just made it more of a hard slog for everyone

If it starts dry then becomes wet, then great.

If it's torrential from first light on Sunday, not so great

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Good timed rain would be like from 2 and a half hours to go onwards. Too soon and people just get too cautious.... Maybe a little sooner, because if it's a caution fest then, we would need more time to have all the possible craziness to happen. But you get the idea.

I hope it's dry.

The cold and wet last year sucked.

What time do you think the wave the green? I get off work at 2pm.

I believe the green silk hits the air at 2:40EST... Give or take.

2:40 is the official start time, and they'll start the warm up laps before that.

Pretty neat qualifying session yesterday. Helio thought he had it, but van der Zande took pole at the last second for WTR. J-Mag on pole in GTLM, he's still as good as ever.

Was a great session - I did feel bad for Helio when he was shown slumped in dejection over his car.

I thought Mazda took pole. Was there two quali sessions?

_________________