Rolex 24 Tickets

Rolex 24
The Rolex 24 is a 24-hour sports car survival race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is held on a 3.56-mile combined road course, utilizing portions of the NASCAR tri-oval and an infield road course. Since its inception, it has been held the last weekend of January or first weekend of February, part of Speed weeks and it is the first major automobile race of the year in the United States.

The race has had several names over the years. Since 1991, the Rolex Watch Co. is the title sponsor of the race under a naming rights arrangement, replacing Sunbank.

Beginnings
In 1962, a few years after the track was built, a 3 hour sports car race was introduced, the Daytona Continental, which counted towards the World Sports Car Championship. The first Continental was won by Dan Gurney, driving a 2.7L Coventry Climax Lotus 19. Many Porsche 718s were driven by privateers, but these 1600 cc cars were considered rather underpowered for a relatively short and fast race despite having won the twisty Targa Florio and the tough 12 Hours of Sebring.

24-hour history
Spa 24 Hours was introduced in 1924 and the 24 Hours N?rburgring in 1970, the purpose of the event is to determine which team of drivers can take their sports car the farthest in a fixed time period, rather than the shortest time over a fixed distance as in most conventional auto races.

Unlike the Le Mans event, the Daytona race is conducted entirely over a closed course within the speedway arena without the use of any public streets. Most parts of the steep banking are included, interrupted with a chicane on the back straight and a sweeping, fast infield section which includes two hairpins. As the race held in nights so lights were installed around the circuit to allow night racing. However, the stadium lights are turned on only to a level of 20%, similar to the stadium lights at Le Mans, where the track is lit similarly, with brighter lights around the pit straight and decent lighting similar to street lights around the circuit.

Daytona GTs
The Gran Turismo class cars at Daytona are closer to the road versions, similar to the GT3 class elsewhere. For example, the more standard Cup version of the 996 is used, instead of the usual RS/RSR racing versions. Recent Daytona entries also include BMW M3s, Corvettes, Mazda RX-8s and Pontiac GTO.

In an effort for teams to save money, GT rules have now changed to permit space frame cars clad in look similar body panels to compete in GT. These rules are somewhat similar to the old GTO specification, but with rather more restrictions.

2006 race
In the 2006 event, teams which are traditionally linked to Porsche made an effort to recapture Daytona which has fielded Porsches traditionally numbered as #58 and #59 since the 1970s. Porsche factory drivers were also scattered around the teams running Porsche engines in their DPs, and it was German Lucas Luhr who set the pole position time with the #23 Crawford-Porsche of Alex Job Racing. In the race, the car that was also driven by Mike Rockenfeller and Patrick Long led for some time, but lost time during a repair of a driveshaft, and finished only 3rd ahead of the #58 Red Bull Brumos Fabcar-Porsche with fellow Porsche works driver Sascha Maassen. Two Riley-Lexus finished 1-2, with Target Chip Ganassi's all-star line-up of Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon and Casey Mears taking the overall win.

2007 Rolex 24 at Daytona
The 2007 Rolex 24 At Daytona was a Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series 24-hour endurance sports car race will held on January 27-28, 2007. The overall winner of the race was the Chip Ganassi/Felix Sabates-owned #01 car, a Lexus-powered Riley MkXI, driven by Juan Pablo Montoya, Salvador Dur?n and Scott Pruett.