Checkered Flag (BS):  What a race it ended up being.  I was truly amazed last year when I came down here for this event and the race ended with a green-white-checkered finish.  I will leave this track amazed once again. 

24 hours and almost 800 laps after the start Michael Shank Racing took home its first ever Rolex 24 at Daytona victory. 

It was no easy feat.  The battle between the #60 and the #8 was one of the longest and most hard fought battles I've seen in ANY racing let alone endurance racing.  It comes as no surprise to me that almost all of the drivers for both of these teams have open-wheel backgrounds.  Ryan Dalziel was an incredible driver in Toyota Atlantics and so was Michael Valiente.  Justin Wilson is obviously one of the greatest drivers in American Open-Wheel today and AJ Allmendinger proved in his short ChampCar career that he also had incredible talent.  It's great to see Justin in victory lane after a tough INDYCAR season ended early due to injury.  It's also a great story for AJ Allmendinger and Michael Shank as they've partnered in this race for years and made run after run at the Rolex 24 trophy.  They apparently had a bet that if AJ won Shank would shave AJ's initials into the back of his head.  We look forward to seeing that!  Finally, they will take the trophy and the beautiful Rolex watches home with them. They didn't just win the race either.  Their sister car driven by Firestone Indy Lights competitors Gustavo Yacaman, Jorge Goncalvez, NASCAR driver Michael McDowell, and British Formula 3 Champion Felipe Nazr finished third; placing two Michael Shank Racing cars on the podium.

I've also got to acknowledge the unsung heroes of this race, the crews for every single team.  I can not imagine the intensity and attention to detail it takes to stay awake for 30+ hours and deal with the high-pressure situation of a pitstop every 45 minutes. 

It was a privelege to be a part of this event for the second year.  It's quite the grind but it's extremely unique and an exciting experience.  It's really got me excited about having the Grand-Am series at IMS in July.  These sports cars are beautiful and it will be great to see BMW's, Ferrari's, and Porsche's make their return to the speedway.  The extremely fast and tight nature of IMS' road course will provide a unique challenge for these drivers and I for one can't wait to see it.  Hopefully we'll get to see drivers like Travis Pastrana and Michael Waltrip as well as drivers from other disciplines and series participate at Indy as they did here in Daytona.  IMS has always been about the greatest drivers in the world at the greatest race track in the world.  I have no doubt that Super Weekend will continue that tradition.

With that, we're off to go get some rest.  Thanks for riding along with us during this trip twice around the clock.  We hope you enjoyed our perspective.  You can expect this same type of coverage and MORE for all of our events at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2012.  We're here to give an inside perspective to our fans and we're committed to giving you all the content you desire.  Let us know if there is anything we can do different or if you have ideas for things you'd like to see us do with our live event coverage.  Send us your tweets @IMS, Facebook messages or email us at online@brickyard.com and we'll do our best to respond.  See you all soon!  Only 118 days until the 2012 Indianapolis 500!

Sunday 1:15 PM (BS): This. is. incredible!  The top two cars in the Daytona Prototype class after 22 hours are wheel to wheel and pushing eachother hard!  They recently were banging wheels on the oval!  They're trading the lead back and forth and it's some of the best racing I've ever seen. 

As they came in for their pitstops under this most recent full course yellow the #01 of Target Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sebates beat them out of the pits.  So we now have a three way battle for the lead with just over 2 hours to go.  Make sure you tune into this!  It's going to be an epic finish!

Sunday 10:15 AM (DI): We're decidedly groggy at the moment, but that doesn't mean we've slept on the job (well maybe for 10 minutes). We did manage to grab some time lapse footage of the sun rising around 7:15 this morning. Check it out.

Sunday 9:00 AM (BS): Don't worry we're still here!  I'll admit it, I fell asleep at my computer... I'm weak.  Which brings me to my next point, I've got to give some serious credit to the crew guys for the teams in this event.  I can not imagine being awake for roughly 36 hours straight, with no sleep, and having to get up and do a pitstop every 45 minutes. 

We're about 7 hours away from teh checkered and the Michael Shank Racing #60 is still the quick car on-track.  Justin Wilson is currently in the cockpit being chased by Joey Hand in the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sebates #01.  It should be an interesting morning and afternoon as we're approaching "go-time" for the sprint to the finish.  Who do you think will win the race?

Sunday 6:30 AM (DI): Sunrise is about 45 minutes away. It's been a long and chilly night - and the sun will receive a warm welcome from everyone. Leading the race is Ryan Dalziel in the Starworks Motorsports #8 Ford Riley. Honestly, after working races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it's a little odd to look at the leaderboard and see that 471 laps have passed. That's a lot of racing. We're working on some time lapse video of the sunrise. In the meantime, enjoy some photos from the night.

Sunday 2:14 AM (BS): We're about 11 hours into the race and nearing the half-way mark quickly.  One of my favorite parts of this event is the late night hours. Around 1:30 AM fans tend to leave the track and teams settle in for the long haul. 

It's really quite interesting to see the village type atmosphere that begins to take hold in the pit area in the middle of the night.  Crew members get quite inventive with sleeping arangements.  Some will slide tires together and lay across them while others have recliners (literally). 

Another unique piece of this event are the pit stand decorations. Pit stands here, and in endurance racing in general, are quite intense.  There's multiple flat screen TV's displaying data from the car, timing and scoring, live streaming of the event, and so on.  Since the pit area and pit stand are the crews home for roughly 36 hours some take it upon themselves to make it feel a little more cozy.  We've seen everything from disco balls to Christmas lights. 

As we go further into the night the driver changes continue to take place.  It's a very delicate dance the teams have to make during these stops.  It seems like complete chaos but somehow in a matter of seconds the replacement driver is in the seat and buckled with the door shut.  It's easy to focus on the driver change during these stops but there's so much going on around the other areas of the car.  At times the entire brake calipers are changed.  The entire brake assembly comes off in one piece and is replaced.  It's pretty incredible when you think about it. 

Here's the current Top 5 in each class:

Daytona Prototype:

1. Scott Dixon - Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sebates
2. Graham Rahal - Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sebates
3. AJ Allmendinger - Michael Shank Racing
4. Jorge Goncalvez - Michael Shank Racing
5. Allan McNish - Starworks Motorsport

GT:

1. Andy Lally - Magnus Racing
2. Mac Lieb - Brumos Porsche
3. Butch Leitzinger - Alex Jobs Racing
4. Matthew Marsh - Autohaus Motorsports
5. Spencer Pumpelly - TRG

We're off to find some more interesting things around the facility, AND COFFEE.  Stay tuned!

 

Saturday 11:30 PM (DI): 8 hours in, which means 1/3 of the race is complete. It's hard to believe that these machines run for 24 hours straight at such high speeds, high revs, and such close competition. The cars continue to accumulate laps while stopping for tires, fuel, driver changes and sometimes, repairs. These cars may run for 24 hours straight, but they couldn't do it without the people behind the scenes. Most teams will do 24+ pit stops.

Midnight approaches, so while we hunt down some espresso, you can enjoy this time lapse of sunset at Daytona, shot earlier today.

 Saturday 9:49 PM (BS): We're just over 6 hours in and it has certainly been an event filled race.  The SunTrust Racing team has retired from the race which came as quite a shock to everyone as they were widely considered a favorite to win the race.  An apparent engine failure caused the team to retire from the race early on. 

There have been several full course cautions and as I'm writing this we are currently under another.  The Oryx Racing Audi made contact with the tire barrier and brought out the full course yellow for the 5th time.  The Dempsey Racing #41 (teammate to the car driven by Patrick Dempsey) brought out a yellow earlier after HEAVY contact with one of the Daytona Prototypes.

In other news, Marco Andretti has arrived at DIS and is currently in the car for the first time.  Marco joined the Starworks team for the event having never driven a Daytona Prototype or raced at Daytona.  Currently Marco is running in 10th place overall.  He's been running quick consitent laps and has definitely showed he can jump in and compete.  It should be interesting to hear what he has to say about the stint.  Apparently he was watching youtube videos of onboard laps at DIS on his phone prior to getting in the car, so he wasn't entirely unprepared.

We have been playing around with a GoPro this evening.  We've done a timelapse of the sunsetting behind the grandstands as well as a trip on the "Big Wheel" at DIS.  For those of you who don't know, the "Big Wheel" is the ferris wheel in the infield.  It provides a pretty neat view of the circuit.  Here's the video. 

We'll have the timelapse up video soon! 

Here's the current top 5 for each class:

Daytona Prototypes:

1. Oliver Gavin - Spirit of Daytona
2. Os Negri Jr. - Michael Shank Racing
3. Ryan Dalziel - Starworks Motorsport
4. Michael McDowell - Michael Shank Racing
5. Max papis - Action Express Racing

GT:

1. Marc Goossens - TRG
2. Richard Lietz - Magnus Racing
3. Robin Liddell - Stevenson Motorsports
4. Jordan Taylor - Autohaus Motorsports
5. James Hinchcliffe - Speedsource

We're off to go take some more pictures!

Saturday 7:16 pm (DI): The sun has set and the temperatures are dropping.What's amazing is that there are still TONS of fans here. Our very own Doug Boles (VP of PR) was just on the SPEED telecast talking about the GRAND-AM race this Super Weekend and how excited we are to host the race. SPEED also announced a special ticket offer for our race - check it out. We're off to grab some dinner.

Saturday 4:54 pm (BS): We're green!  It has been a very interesting race so far.  There's been plenty of lead changes in both classes as well as a few spins. 

We strolled the grid before the race started.  It's a really awesome experience here at Daytona.  The fans get the opportunity to get ride down on the grid and cozy up to some of their favorite cars and drivers.  It's a very friendly atmosphere as drivers shake hands, pose for pictures, and accept well wishes from fans. 

After the quick grid walk I made my way out to the track to shoot the start.  It's a very, very exciting moment just before the green flag.  Amazingly the first couple laps were clean.  There was no one knocked out of the race.  We did happen to catch the #62 Ferrari 458 of Risi Racing have a quick spin and gather it back up.

The current top 5 in each class reads like this. 

Scott Dixon just took the lead in the #02 and teammate Scott Pruett is giving chase from 2nd position.  Memo Gidley, John Pew, and Michael Valiente round out the top 5 in the Daytona Prototype class.

Emmanuel Collard, Leh Keen, Robin Liddell, Mike Rockenfeller, and Richard Lietz are in positions 1-5 in the GT class.  We're heading back out to the track to get some more photos so we'll be back soon.  In the mean time the camera is LIVE in the press conference room so you can hear what drivers have to say about their stints during the race.  It can be found here.  See you soon!

Saturday 12:35 pm (DI): The driver's meeting finished about 30 minutes ago and there was a common message throughout - you're not going to win the race in the first corner. It was a beautiful morning the for the meeting and the driver's, team reps and sponsors filled victory circle. Among the many notable names was Sir Jackie Stewart who took time to pose with other British drivers in the field. Pretty cool.

Saturday 11:52 am (BS):  It's RACE DAY!  We're awfull excited to get this thing off and rolling.  Currently there are vintage Rolex 24 winning cars taking laps on track.  It's quite the beautiful sight.  My personal favorite is this GULF sponsored prototype.  I love those colors! 

The drivers meeting is currently taking place and we should have photos of that soon!  It's quite the sight with that many drivers all in one place.  It's a beautiful day here and there are TONS of vintage race cars and rare sports cars parked around the facility.  With that said, we're off to go get some photos of them!  We'll be uploading hundreds of photos over the next 36 hours or so and we'll also be streaming ALL the press conferences from the media center.  So stay tuned and try to go twice around the clock with us!

Friday 1:46 pm (BS): This mornings session was one thing and one thing only... WET!  This presents several challenges to shooting in the rain.  First and foremost we have to keep our cameras dry so you're essentially shooting inside a trashbag.  Shooting through the mist makes it difficult to get nice crisp photos but we love a challenge.

We ventured out to a light sprinkle but before the checkered flag fell it was a full on downpour.  Surprisingly, quite a few cars spent almost the entire session on-track.  A few of the top teams went out and did an install check and then parked for the day but for the most part it was a very busy session.  The GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing team was quickest on the day with a lap time of 1:50.365.  Ironically the next 3 quickest cars were in the GT class.  The #48 Porsche of Paul Miller Racing was second quick with a 1:53.160.  The #67 and #68 TRG Porsche's were 3rd and 4th with the SunTrust Racing Daytona Prototype coming home in the 5th position.  

We're currently watching the Continental Tires Series race and Eric Curran is in the lead.  Jeff Westphal sits in second place while Joe Foster, Nick Longhi, and Shelby Blackstock (Reba McEntire's son and 2012 USF2000 competitor) close out the final three positions in the Top 5.  It's still raining here so we imagine cooler heads will prevail in this race.  Driving in the rain is truly an art! 

We'll have an update after the race (and an update from Anders!) and then we're off for the day.  Is there anything we're not covering that you'd like us to?  Questions we can answer?  Send them to us on Twitter or Facebook and we'll do our best to bring you up to SPEED.

Friday 12:46 pm (BS): Marshall Pruett, of Speed.com fame, was nice enough to give us this incredible on-board footage from James Hinchcliffe's night practice run last night.  Check it out!  We'll be back with more of an update shortly.

***Please be patient.  The video is large and takes several minutes to load.

 

Friday 10:15 am (DI): It's been a slowish start to the day with cars coming in and out of the garages as they experiment with different setups for the changing possibilities in weather. The damp start hasn't affected the fan engagement as they walk all around the grounds and gather around the garages. It's still a great atmosphere and it will only increase as race day gets closer.

Friday 9:05 am (BS): We've arrived to a soggy Daytona International Speedway today.  It rained overnight and has been sprinkling a bit here and there all morning.  We're secretly hoping for a wet session so that we can do some shooting in the rain!  For now we're off to find some breakfast, we'll be back in a bit with a bigger update.

Thursday 8:53 pm (BS):  The first and only night practice for the Rolex 24 at Daytona has concluded and it was quite the event filled session.  We spent most of our time checking out some different vantage points around the track since two of us have never been here before.  It really is quite a shock for the first time.  Coming from a facility that has never had a night race to seeing 50+ cars on track at once with assorted headlight colors, body styles and engine tones really gets the racing blood going.  It really gets us excited about the 2012 Super Weekend.  It's going to be a really amazing experience watching the GRAND-AM series race into the sunset at IMS.  We can't wait!  For now, let's get back to the Rolex...

As we said, the session was pretty exciting.  There was intense passing, close wheel to wheel racing and SEVERAL cautions.  We even caught a prototype with the door open mid-corner (car pictured below)!  The final results of the practice session ended with the Michael Shank Racing with Curb Records Daytona Prototype in the lead.  Drivers John Pew, Os Negri Jr., AJ Allmendinger, and Justin Wilson set the quickest lap of the session with a 1:42.370.  The Krohn Racing #76, Starworks Motorsports #8, GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing #99, and Starworks Racing #2 rounded out the Top 5.  IMS regular Ryan Hunter-Reay was the second fastest INDYCAR driver in the session. 

 

The combined results of the sessions completed today told a different story.  SunTrust Racing with drivers Max Angelelli, Ricky Taylor, and Ryan Briscoe set the fastest lap of the day with a 1:41.952.  GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing #99 finished second quickest while the Spirit of Daytona #90, Chip Ganassi Racing #01, and Action Express #9 DP's closed out the Top 5. 

We've got an early morning tomorrow and are really excited to spend our first full day here at the Rolex 24.  We'll have TONS of photos and lots of blog posts for you to follow along with.  Stay tuned for a blog update from Anders Krohn about his teams struggles this afternoon.  See you tomorrow!

Thursday 5:51 pm (DI): The team from IMS is situated in the Daytona International Speedway Media Center prepping for the 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 at Daytona - it's quite an honor to be here. We've got 3 laptops, an HD camera for streaming, 3 Camera bodies and at least (8) lenses. We're ready for a full weekend of racing and updates for you, as we begin to turn our attention to the 2012 race season. This year, the Brickyard 400 has turned into Super Weekend, featuring the addition of a Nationwide and GRAND-AM event. This weekend will give you a sneak peak of what to expect on July 27 when GRAND-AM attacks the Brickyard road course.

Feel free to leave us comments or message us via Twitter. We won't be sleeping much.

We've also got Indy Lights driver Anders Krohn blogging for us this weekend. He's co-driving with John Andretti in the Yellow Dragon Mazda.