53rd Rolex 24 at Daytona - Bring on the Canucks!

by: Chris Jameson - RaceCanada
January 16, 2015

The IMSA TUDOR Championship has released the entry list for the 53rd running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona scheduled for January 24th and 25th. There are a total of 53 entries across four classes. The race weekend, which gets underway on Wednesday (21st) with open practice, also features the IMSA Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge (CTSC) and the Ferrari Challenge series. 

After reviewing the entries for the recent Roar Before the 24, we have noticed some changes in terms of drivers added and some missing from the current official entry list. With some teams showing either a shorted or T.B.A driver list, we expect some of that to change ahead of Wednesday.

Of course the RaceCanada mandate is to focus on the Canadian portion of the entry list and if you read our most recent article "A Bit Short of Canadian Bacon", there are some obvious omissions from the entry list – most notable being Woodbridge Ontario's AIM Autosport, the 2014 North American Endurance Cup championship team.

As for drivers, there are a total of ten (10) who are shown to the flying the Maple Leaf next to their names. Michael Valiante returns to his full-time ride in the #90 Visit Florida Corvette DP while Sylvain Tremblay returns with the Speedsource Mazda diesel prototype program. Tremblay is once again joined by Indycar driver James Hinchcliffe.

The largest contingent of Canadians appears in Prototype Challenge with Chris Cumming back at RSR Racing. Mikhail Goikhberg, the 2014 IMSA Lites champion joins JDC/Miller Motorsports for his first Rolex 24 while James Vance slots into a seat with Performance Tech Motorsports. Mark Wilkins returns with 2014 Rolex 24 PC champions CORE Autosport.

A big change in GT Le Mans is the absence of the SRT Vipers which includes the 2014 winning car with Kuno Wittmer at the wheel. The GTLM class features Canadian with Paul Dalla Lana in the Aston Martin Racing Vantage V8 and in an update, Bruno Spengler is listed as a driver in one of the RLL BMW's (he attended The Roar). We missed it initially as he was listed based on his residence (France). We have been ninformed that the car does in fact have a Canadian flag next to Bruno's name.

While Wittmer might be missing from GTLM, happily, he is back in a Viper with Riley Motorsports running in GT Daytona. Also running in GTD, Max Riddle in the TRG-AMR 12 Vantage (this car has two open driver spots listed as T.B.A.)

That is the ten drivers listed as Canadian - but we have added an eleventh. Darryl O'Young (shown as Hong Kong) has been known to use the Maple Leaf for events such as the Rolex 24. Regardless the flag he flies, we will include O'Young in our results.

As noted, action gets underway on Wednesday and we will be reporting the results through the weekend. NOTE: As of today, neither CTSC nor Ferrari Challenge has issued a driver list. We will update as those become available.

Prototype (P) – 16 entries

#70 SpeedSource Mazda / Castrol / ModSpace Mazda
Jonathan Bomarito / Monterey, CA
Tristan Nunez / Boca Raton, FL
James Hinchcliffe / Oakville, ON
Sylvain Tremblay / Parkland, FL (Montreal, QC)

#90 VisitFlorida.com Racing VisitFlorida.com Corvette DP
Richard Westbrook / London, England
Michael Valiante / Burnaby, BC
Mike Rockenfeller / Neuwied, Germany

#07 SpeedSource Mazda / Castrol / ModSpace Mazda
Joel Miller / Hesperia, CA
Tom Long / Raleigh, NC
Ben Devlin / England
Sylvain Tremblay / Parkland, FL (Montreal, QC)

Prototype Challenge (PC) – 8 entries

#11 RSR Racing AutoMaxUSA ORECA FLM09
Chris Cumming / Vancouver, BC
Bruno Junqueira / Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Jack Hawksworth / Bradford, England
Gustavo Menezes / Los Angeles, CA

#38 Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA FLM09
James French / Sheboygan, WI
Jerome Mee / Houston, TX
James Vance / Stouffville, ON

#54 CORE autosport Composite Resources / Flex Box ORECA
Jon Bennett / Charlotte, NC
Colin Braun / Charlotte, NC
Mark Wilkins / Palgrave, ON
James Gue / Alpharetta, GA

#85 JDC/Miller Motorsports La Moderna ORECA FLM09
Mikhail Goikhberg / Vaughn, ON
Chris Miller / Edina, MN
Stephen Simpson / United Kingdom
Rusty Mitchell / Midland, TX

GT Le Mans (GTLM) – 10 entries

#25 BMW Team RLL IHG Rewards Club BMW Z4 GTE
Bill Auberlen / Redondo Beach, CA
Dirk Werner / Hanover, Germany
Augusto Farfus / Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
Bruno Spengler / Schiltigheim, France - Montreal, QC

#98 Aston Martin Racing Gulf Aston Martin Vantage V8
Pedro Lamy / Lisbon, Portugal
Paul Dalla Lana / Toronto, ON
Darren Turner / Banbury, UK
Stefan Mücke / Berlin, Germany
Matthias Lauda / Ibiza, Spain (Austrian)

GT Daytona (GTD) – 19 entries

#18 Muehlner Motorsports America Porsche 911 GT America
Darryl O'Young / Tin Hau, Hong Kong - Vancouver, BC
Matteo Beretta / Lecco, Italy
Marc Basseng / Rosenbach, Germany
Connor De Phillippi / San Clemente, CA
TBA / TBA

#93 Riley Motorsports TI Automotive Dodge Viper SRT
Ben Keating / Port Lavaca, TX
Dominik Farnbacher / Ansbach, Germany
Al Carter / Greenville, DE
Kuno Wittmer / Montreal, QC
Cameron Lawrence / Windermere, FL

009 TRG-AMR Orion Energy / Royal Purple Aston Martin V12 Vantage
Derek DeBoer / Central Point, OR
Max Riddle / Vancouver, BC
TBA / TBA
TBA / TBA