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It's time for the 51st edition of IMSA sports car racing, as the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship starts their season this weekend with the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Supporting the weekend includes the 4-hour race for the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge, and also Ferrari Challenge North America.

This year's race features 38 entries in total, which sees a massive drop as several teams have shut down & a couple manufacturers have left the sport. Of those 38 entries, there is 13 prototypes between DPi and LMP2, and 25 GT cars between GT LeMans (GTE) and GT Daytona (GT3).

Debuting in this year's Rolex 24 is the all-new Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTLM car, with the usual 2 entries from Corvette Racing, and Aston Martin is finally back in IMSA's main series with a full-time entry by The Heart of Racing.

DPi sees a drop of the second Action Express team, and the CORE Nissan. Mustang Sampling has stayed in the sport, moving their effort from AXR to JDC-Miller & hiring Sebastian Bourdais (who was recently let loose from Dale Coyne's IndyCar team). Wayne Taylor Racing will see a 4 car effort with Renger van der Zande, Ryan Briscoe, Scott Dixon & Kamui Kobayashi. Penske returns with Acura in a unchanged lineup, Mazda Team Joest is mostly the same as well - Ryan Hunter-Reay however will return to the #55 car, in which he subbed in last year. Previous Indy 500 starter Matheus Leist joins the JDC-Miller team in the #85 Cadillac.

LMP2 sees only 5 entries, as the Rick Ware Racing team has withdrawn their #2 Riley from the field. With that, the field becomes a ORECA show once again. Notables include the #8 Starworks entry (Ryan Dalziel, David Heinemeier Hansson), #81 DragonSpeed entry (Colin Braun, Ben Hanley, Henrik Hedman, Harrison Newey), and Ben Keating doubling up in both Prototype & GT machines in the PR1 Mathiasen car.

GTE sees the loss of both Ganassi entries as Ford discontinued their GT effort, the manufacturer is only involved now with IMSA's Michelin Pilot Challenge in GT4 once again. Corvette & Porsche both will have new cars in the race. Corvette also sees a refreshed driver lineup with Jordan Taylor & Nicky Catsburg joining the #3 car. Other notable one-off drivers include: Chaz Mostert (V8 Supercars regular) in the #24 BMW, Colton Herta (IndyCar regular) & Bruno Spengler (DTM regular) in the #25 BMW.

GTD sees 18 cars entered, Aston Martin will have 2 cars in the field for the first time in a while, with a suedo-factory effort in the #98, and the full-time Heart of Racing #23 entry. Notable one-off drivers include: Patrick Pilet in the #9 Pfaff Porsche, Shane van Gisbergen (V8 Supercar regular) in the #12 AIM/VS Lexus, Kyle Busch (NASCAR regular) in the #14 AIM/VS Lexus, Nicki Thimm in the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin, AJ Allmendinger - who is splitting between the #57 MSR Acura & the NBC commentary booth.


The major support race of the weekend is the IMSA Michelin Challenge on Friday - featuring a 4 hour endurance race. The field includes 33 GT4 cars, and 18 TCR cars. Manufacturers entered (across both classes) include: Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, McLaren, Mercedes & Porsche.

Race & Track Information:
Track Distance: 3.56 miles
Turns: 12
Race Distance: 24 hours
Sunset / Sunrise: 05:56PM / 07:16AM
Total of Laps Run in 2018: 808 laps / 2,876 miles
Official Track Record: 1:33.685 - Oliver Jarvis - Mazda DPi / 2019
Mazda Team Joest ran under the track record during this year's Roar Before the 24 with a 1:33.324

Entry Lists:
IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship - 38 cars entered (8 in DPi, 5 in LMP2, 7 in GTLM, 18 in GTD)
IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge - 51 cars entered (33 in Grand Sport, 18 in TCR)
IMSA Ferrari Challenge North America - 41 cars entered

Spotter Guides:
SpotterGuides.com by Andy Blackmore

Essentials:
Timing & Scoring (Alkamel)
Radio LeMans (IMSA Radio)
Weather Forecast
Race History
IMSA Mobile App
IMSA IWSC Guide - Official Series Page
TBK's Discord - (linked from 2018 thread)

On-Track Schedule (All times are local to the circuit / US-Eastern):


Broadcast (Television / Streaming / Radio) Information:


Onboard Lap:
Agustín Canapino - #50 Juncos Racing Cadillac DPI-V.R. - Michelin Tire Testing (2018)


Track Map:

Pretty bummed with how much lower the car count is this year, some of these endurance races (either sports car or touring cars) just can't seem to catch a break in that regard.

At least the Pilot Challenge series has gotten alot better with car counts thanks to GT4 & TCR

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For those of us in the United States that were previously a member on FansChoice.TV, I would recommend checking your email as they have sent out 1 month free trials for NBC Sports Gold : TrackPass. So if you don't want to deal with ad-breaks every 5 to 10 minutes, I would suggest going there (if you haven't subbed for the month, you should get the ARCA races during Speedweeks with it as well)

Entry lists updated on the main post.

Jeroen Bleekemolen was fastest in the #35 Riley Motorsports Mercedes GT4 in the most recent practice for Michelin Pilot Challenge yesterday. The first televised session of the weekend is later today, with qualifying for the Rolex 24. As always, this will be on IMSA.tv. NBCSN will not cover the session this year (as it was a one-off for the brand new broadcast team last year).

Quali stream has started

The Pfaff team firesuits are fantastic.

Big off in the Bus Stop for Ricky Taylor

Really see how much speed they carry through there when something goes wrong.

Too much kerb got him airborne and the landing caused him to lose it.

Hi to Nick Tandy's friends and family at home

_________________
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

Ferrari Challenge stream

https://races.ferrari.com/en/corse-clienti/live/

Lot's of cars, night, gentlemen drivers...

Amazing the start shenanigans wasn't bigger...

FCY

A lot of damaged cars out there now

IMPC is green!!

Only major offs so far is the Turner BMW GT4 blowing a tire, and Stacy going off at the bus stop

Kuno Wittmer leads

NBC coverage pretty good so far, but for the small stints where they forget to turn on car-only sounds

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#61 Audi about junked it exiting the infield

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Battle for overall lead while in TCR traffic

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#95 Turner BMW with another puncture

#37 Honda TCR had a flat also

#33 Hyundai TCR of Ryan Norman & the #61 Road Shagger Audi TCR of Ernstone made contact exiting the infield earlier

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