After all the balancing of performance done over the last year and the testing at Daytona and Sebring during the off-season it might be interesting to take a look at some lap times:
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| Fastest Race Laps by year and class |
So after some new aerodynamic upgrades, an extra 50hp and other allowances, a Daytona Prototype managed to cut just about 2 seconds (1.997) from last year's fastest lap. The DPs had to forego their new front splitter for safety reasons, but we may see them again on other tracks. The GTD class (last year's Grand-Am GT class) managed about a 1 second (0.947) improvement over last year; in both years it was a Ferrari 458 setting the pace.
I feel justified breaking out the DPs from the P2s and the Deltawing because these are really three very different cars running in a single class. On lap times it would appear as if TUSC had done pretty good job of balancing the performance of the cars in the Prototype class. If you had seen them on track, it would seem somewhat different. The P2 cars were very much slower on the long straights, being passed by GTD cars routinely, only to catch and pass them on the infield road course. The 3 car types within the prototype class get their lap times in different ways. The DPs have about 100hp and a much higher top end advantage over the lighter P2 cars, which have an advantage in the twisty bits and under braking. The Deltawing was very fast in the straights, but couldn't match the P2s in the corners. Daytona, and other power tracks will favor top-end speed, while more technical tracks should favor the more nimble cars. Let's hope that TUSC doesn't cripple the P2s in favor of the DPs; let their overall performance allow each their advantages to shine on the appropriate tracks. The P2s did better than I had expected: there was 1 in the top 5, 2 in the top 10, and 3 in the top 15. If the Morgan-Nissan hadn't had that alternator failure (lost 16 laps), there may have been 2 in the top 5, but that's endurance racing.
The new Mazda SkyActiv diesel prototypes were two of the slowest cars on the track, and they didn't make it to the finish. I think it was a brave effort to bring out such a radical car in so public a forum for what amounts to extended testing. I have my doubts about how much they can improve, but such guts deserve our patient understanding.
The end of the race was marred by controversy. At the checkered flag Level 5's 1st place GTD Ferrari was assessed a penalty for avoidable contact with the 2nd place Flying Lizard GTD Audi thereby giving the win to the Lizards. There was no contact between the two cars. Some 3 hours later, the ruling was reversed, returning the win to Level 5. This kerfuffle shows two things. The bad thing was they robbed a team of their public victory on the podium. The good thing was that TUSC eventually did the right thing. In the NASCAR-centric world the wrong would probably not have been righted; once the fans have left the stands, the race is done and no changes to the outcome would take place. So, I am optimistic that TUSC will continue to evolve and adopt those values that the ALMS exemplified.
About the Coverage
The Daytona 24 is one race that I have never been able to watch "live" in the past due to the fact that Grand-Am only ever televised it live on Speed, which my local cable monopoly never carried. Now Speed has become Fox Sports, and I still can't see it. I was able to see the first 2 hours of the race this year on the basic cable Fox channel. The only legitimate streaming video that I could have seen was between the hours of 9PM and 7AM EST (10PM to 8AM AST) at IMSA.com, but the start of that stream experienced technical difficulties, so I went to bed. I got up at 5AM AST (4AM EST) to watch the last 3 hours of the streaming coverage, which ended early BTW. I was at least able to watch any of several on-board cameras for the entire race (thank goodness). The audio commentary of Bob Varsha, Dorsey Schroeder and company was very good for the 2 hours on Fox that I could watch. I can't say the same for MRN commentary that was my only option for the other 22 hours.
I realized I was in for a hard slog when the MRN announcer stated that this year's PC class was known as LMP2 in last year's ALMS (face palm). No, afraid not. Last year the PC class was known as LMPC for "Le Man Prototype Challenge" in the ALMS. What made the error more glaring was that last year's ALMS LMP2 was actually running in this year's TUSC Prototype class. That was just a taste of the inadequate MRN commentary. Let's put it this way, much of the time I just listened to the car noises from the on-board videos and turned MRN off altogether. When I did listen to MRN, they seemed to cover the overall race leaders almost exclusively, even when some of the best racing was often in the GTLM or GTD classes. I have never missed Radio Le Mans more than for this race, but I fear that they will be missed on every round on the TUSC calendar. I think it a travesty that the voice of the ALMS has been lost to fans of U.S. endurance racing. My only hope is that in future races there will be a live stream (that I can actually get) that has the Fox Sports commentary team and/or members of the RLM team.
Beyond the audio and periodic video coverage, there was live timing and scoring that allowed me to follow the race. Back in the day I followed many races (ALMS, ELMS, Le Mans) with only RLM commentary and live timing and scoring. I would rather have decent commentary and good T&S, than mediocre commentary with video. I found a source for live timing and scoring that was (IMHO) better than, and certainly easier to follow, than that supplied by IMSA.com.
Live T&S: http://www.livescoring.us/scoring.php
The screen-shot of the results referenced at the top of this posting utilized this site.
Before the start of the season it was claimed that archived race video would be available on IMSA.com 24 hours after broadcast. It has been over 48 hours and I'm still waiting to see when it gets posted. Welcome to the future.
UPDATE: The Daytona race video archive was posted in 4 parts today (Jan 30th). So far a total of about 10-11 hours of the race. Fortuitously these videos are being archived on the Tudor Championship channel on YouTube and YouTube recently became available on my Roku 3, so by subscribing to that channel I can now watch the race archives conveniently on my LCD TV in up to 720p resolution. Oh yeah, and the commercials are edited out.
