Definitely a hard fought 24 Hours. Despite my least-favorite team taking home the watches, I thoroughly enjoyed this year's Daytona. Here's some personal points of interest for me.
- No Luck for Cheever Coyotes: The newest pair of chassis on the grid, the Coyotes qualified poorly and ran into trouble early, finishing 65th (#51) and 58th (#16) overall. Hopefully, the bugs are worked out by Homestead, but with the comparatively underfunded Spirit of Daytona Racing #09 Porsche-Fabcar/Coyote (they used last year's Cheever-rebody of the Fabcar chassis) achieving a 15th overall/10th in class finish, it doesn't look good for Cheever's Coyote.
- New Riley MkXX Proves Fast: Not that this wasn't expected, but the MkXX was quick in every hour, and led its own fair share of the race thanks to AIM Autosport, Michael Shank Racing, and Riley-Matthews. From the moment MSR locked up the front row, it became clear that with the Riley MkXX will be just as formidable for the next generation of Daytona Prototypes as the Riley MkXI was for the first.
- Doran JE4 Goes Down Fighting: After significant problems early on that ultimately cost the JE4 it's streak of top tens at Daytona, it was still enthralling to see the familiar Kodak #77 chugging away at the finish. Here's hoping that its Dallara replacement at Homestead proves fast for both Doran Racing and Wayne Taylor/Suntrust Racing.
- There's Still Life With Crawford: Even though they were ultimately felled by engine troubles, the Ruby Tuesday #23 Porsche Crawford was fast and led a significant portion of the 24. This alongside of Vision Racing's solid effort and the Howard Motorsports/Childress Racing announcement means that the Crawford DP03 isn't going away anytime soon.
- Krohn Plays it Safe: 4th and 7th place overall finishes for Krohn Racing's venerable Pontiac Riley MkXI's showed that the team made the right call leaving the unproven Lolas at the shop. Look forward to more testing of the new machines before the Homestead round.
- Big Players Getting Interested: During the weekend, it was heard that both Roger Penske and Jack Roush are very interested in DP teams of their own. Penske has already said that a full-time effort for this season would not be out of the question if sponsorship could be found. Jack Roush was less direct, but said that taking into account Ford's increased presence in Grand Am, he'd like to return to Daytona with a team of his own (keeping in mind his prior IMSA GTO and GTP efforts) in addition to being the principle engine builder for Ford powered DP's.
