{"id":845,"date":"2018-01-28T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2018-01-28T20:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=845"},"modified":"2023-05-03T16:18:08","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T20:18:08","slug":"early-end-to-rolex-24-for-spirit-of-daytona-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/28\/early-end-to-rolex-24-for-spirit-of-daytona-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Early End to Rolex 24 for Spirit of Daytona Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Promising fast start ends after misfire\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Daytona<\/span>\u00a0Beach, Fla. (28 January, 2018) \u2013 After taking podium finishes in the Rolex 24 At\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0the last three years running,\u00a0Spirit<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>Daytona<\/span>\u00a0Racing was hoping to emerge with a new addition for the trophy case this weekend as the team took to the World Center\u00a0of<\/span>Racing to open the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.<\/p>\n

Ready to go with the team\u2019s recently- acquired Cadillac DPi-V.R Prototype, the stout driver lineup\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Tristan Vautier, Matt McMurry and Eddie Cheever lll\u00a0 teamed for the season opener at\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0International Speedway.<\/p>\n

After leading the race early and running in podium position for much\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the opening eight hours\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the race, the home town team was well on the path to continuing its strong record\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0success in the Rolex 24.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that ambition was ultimately thwarted by a mechanical issue.<\/p>\n

Vautier started from fifth and ran in that position in the initial stages, moving to fourth on lap 22, then further improving to second place by lap 33 before taking the lead on lap 41.\u00a0 When McMurry took over, it was more\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the same as the young American clocked lap after lap in second place and returned the No. 90 to the lead on lap 133 before turning the car over to Cheever a few laps later. The Italian-American continued to keep the blue Cadillac in the frame up front, showing strong pace in his IMSA debut on board the Cadillac Prototype.<\/p>\n

A sudden rain shower saw the team make the move to rain tires as the entire track was enveloped in an intense downpour that lasted more than 15 minutes. Despite the challenging conditions, the race remained green as the depth\u00a0of<\/span>talent in the field was well on display.<\/p>\n

The transition back to dry running saw the squad still in the top ten as the drivers began their second rotation\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0stints in the\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0night.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as McMurray continued to click off the laps in a race that pressed ahead at an unrelenting speed, his pace was soon slowed by an intermittent engine misfire. The team sent the car back to the garage to work on a range\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0diagnostic measures, but after closer evaluation, the misfire proved to be too deep in the motor to address and the effort was retired.<\/p>\n

The early end to the race was a disappointing outcome for the team, which had impressed with a strong team effort to be prepared with the new Cadillac machine just weeks after taking first delivery. But after showing impressive pace both in opening testing and also at race time, the group will head home with thoughts\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Sebring already on their minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just hate to not make it to the finish\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0this race, and we\u2019ve been so fortunate the last five years to have top fives and podiums, so this was a tough one,\u201d said team owner Troy Flis. \u201cBut I\u2019m really really proud\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the effort that this team put in for us to be ready to go. We had great pace, our drivers did an outstanding job, and we just got caught out by this mechanical snag that ended things early. So it is disappointing but we\u2019ve got a lot to be really excited about with our program and hopefully we can bounce back at Sebring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tristan Vautier, No. 90\u00a0Spirit<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>Daytona<\/span>\u00a0Cadillac DPi-V.R, retired:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a shamed when it is over with 15 hours left,\u201d said Vautier. \u201cThere are a lot\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0positives. We drove hard and showed some good speed all week in the\u00a0Spirit<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Daytona<\/span>Cadillac. It was good to make a challenge this week. Everyone did a good job, just bad luck. Nothing we really could control. I had a lot\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0fun, I really enjoyed driving the Cadillac. There are so many strong teams, it is good proper racing and it showed this (IMSA)\u00a0 is the place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team did everything they could,\u201d said McMurry. \u201cThe Cadillac was set-up great. I could just push and I had a good fight with (Ryan) Hunter-Reay and some other strong guys. So that was encouraging but\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0course to stop early is very disappointing. We will get everything sorted and plan to have a good Sebring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole weekend, except for the end, was really high potential,\u201d said Cheever. \u201cThe team did so well, given that they only got the car a month ago. I give them a lot\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0credit. My teammates did a great job as well, so it was very promising at the outset. My stint was good until it started raining \u2013 I had no radio so that was a little bit\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0a panic, so I just focused on staying out\u00a0of<\/span>trouble. This was my first time racing here and it would have been very easy to make a mistake. The car is very reliable, so it\u2019s really a shame that this happened, we could have been right up there. I only had the one stint, and I\u2019m still learning, so I can\u2019t wait to get back in the car!\u201d<\/p>\n

The team will now\u00a0focus on preparation for the Sebring 12 Hours on\u00a0March 17<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Promising fast start ends after misfire\u00a0   Daytona\u00a0Beach, Fla. (28 January, 2018) \u2013 After taking podium finishes in the Rolex 24 At\u00a0Daytona\u00a0the last three years running,\u00a0Spirit\u00a0ofDaytona\u00a0Racing [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":847,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions\/847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}