Rolex 24 History

[Wheel-Nut]

Being a somewhat casual sports car fan I pose the following question. What was the Rolex 24 before the DP became, "car de jour"? What do you oldtimers have to say?

This isn't posted as a my 24 is better than your 24. I am curious as to what cars were racing, how big were the fields, attendance? What were the '70's like? 80's and 90's? What was the peak?

[Sean O'Gorman]

I think it was alot darker back then :eek:

[pchall]

A short and prejudiced summary of sports endurance racing at Daytona.


From 1962 to 1981 the Continental 3 Hours, the Daytona 2000 and the Daytona 24 Hours was a race in the World Sportscar Championship. The real deal with the Ford -- Ferrari -- Porsche classic races. Then the Group 6 period with 3.0l open cars. Then the 935 turbo years until the World Sportscar Championship condensed and changed to Group C. From 1982 until the appearance of the Crapotypes the race was an IMSA affair with the marvellous GTP cars until 1993 and then the WSC cars like the Riley&Scott Mk III and the Ferrari 333SC. The sportscar racing pretty much imploded with Andy Evans mucking about with the race regulation while owning IMSA/Professional Sports Car Racing. That PSCR mess (They killed sports car racing. The bastards!] brought about the abortive France & Penske inspired USRRC revival and eventually the DP dumbing down of sports cars to a road racing version of NASCAR...

Of course towards the end Panoz showed up with ALMS and its affiliation with the ACO to reconnect sports endurance racing in North America with it European roots, but the France Family would have none of that.

[extramundane]

Even still, from the late 90s 'til 2003, you could (generally, with a few glaring exceptions) run GARRA and ALMS with the same equipment.

Too bad how it all went down. To see the R8 or the Bentley at full song on the Daytona banks would have been quite the sight.

F*** Andy Evans.