While the next official TUDOR United SportsCar Championship test will be just before the Rolex 24 on Jan. 3-5, several teams will be participating in private sessions as follow up to the November tests at Sebring International Raceway and Daytona International Speedway. The Michael Shank Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates transporters were lined up side-by-side in the Daytona International Speedway paddock on Tuesday and Wednesday, and there was plenty of interaction between the two teams throughout the session.
Scott Dixon did the bulk of the driving in the No. 01 Telcel/Target Ford EcoBoost/Riley, briefly joined on Tuesday by 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie Kyle Larson. Running in a sports car for the first time, Larson was able to get within seven-tenths of a second off Dixon’s best lap on Tuesday. Sharing the track with the Shank and Ganassi teams were a pair of SRT Vipers – an SRT Motorsports GTS-R for the GTLM class driven by Marc Goossens and Kuno Wittmer, and a Riley Motorsports GT3-R for the GTD class driven by Ben Keating and Jeroen Bleekemolen.
It will be the first Rolex 24 for SRT Motorsports, which ran fulltime in the ALMS for the first time in 2013, winning at Road America. Viper has its niche in the Rolex 24 history book, winning overall in 2000 for the French Team Oreca. SpeedSource brought a pair of the new Mazda SDR-14s that will debut at the Rolex 24. After debuting the Mazda SKYACTIV-D diesel powerplant in the Rolex Series GX class in 2013, Sylvain Tremblay’s team is making the move to the Prototype class.
