{"id":848,"date":"2018-01-25T15:53:36","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T20:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=848"},"modified":"2023-05-03T16:18:15","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T20:18:15","slug":"racing-at-home-spirit-of-daytona-scores-fifth-on-rolex-24-at-daytona-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/25\/racing-at-home-spirit-of-daytona-scores-fifth-on-rolex-24-at-daytona-grid\/","title":{"rendered":"Racing at Home, Spirit of Daytona Scores Fifth on Rolex 24 At Daytona Grid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daytona<\/span>\u00a0Beach, Fla. (25 January, 2018) \u2013 The hometown team will start from the inside\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the third row for this weekend\u2019s Rolex 24 At\u00a0Daytona<\/span>, as\u00a0Spirit<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Daytona<\/span>Racing put its No. 90 Cadillac DPi-V.R into fifth position on the starting grid for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship\u2019s endurance classic.<\/p>\n

With the team completing nearly 200 laps at the Roar Before the 24 test earlier this month, just two practice sessions were on the schedule ahead\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the afternoon qualifying.<\/p>\n

The driving trio\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Tristan Vautier, Matt McMurry and Eddie Cheever lll put the Cadillac through its paces, with Vautier taking the wheel for qualifying. The team led the timing sheets for a short time during the 15-minute session despite having only two weeks\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0running the new car under their collective belt.<\/p>\n

A flurry\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0quick laps at the end settled them into fifth position with a lap\u00a0of<\/span>1:36.472-seconds, a mere four-tenths\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0a second off pole position.<\/p>\n

The race reflected the expectation that the race will be incredibly competitive, underscored by the fact that the top 13 in the field were separated by less than one second.<\/p>\n

Vautier was exceptionally proud\u00a0of<\/span>the team\u2019s hard work in putting together the Cadillac DPi-V.R so quickly (the team\u2019s initial shakedown with the new car came only days before the Roar) but disappointed with what might have been.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering we started with the car January 2nd<\/sup>, it was a good effort today,\u201d Vautier said. \u201cStarting fifth is a good result. \u00a0A top five with a new car and a new team is a positive result. It is very close out there with the competition, and we have to maximize our effort. We now need to find a few fixes to make the car good over the 24 hours. We have a good driver line-up, the car is very comfortable, and the\u00a0Spirit<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0guys will get the car right. It\u2019s a long race so you have to pace yourself at the start, so I want to have a good safe start and not risk the car. This is the team\u2019s home race, so that helps to motivate us even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team owner Troy Flis appreciated the effort by the entire team to put the car in the top five, and looks forward to what will be the team\u2019s 32nd appearance in the Rolex 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing, to look at that scoreboard and see the top eight within half a second,\u201d said Flis. \u201cThe competition is unbelievable \u2013 and it\u2019s great to see so many manufacturers participating. Now it\u2019s time for us to do our job and put Cadillac on top. I thought it had a top\u00a01:36<\/span><\/span>\u00a0in it, and we ran a 1:36.4 so I\u2019m happy with it. We\u2019re in this for the big trophy, so if we keep doing what we\u2019re doing, I think we\u2019ll be there. We have a great package with this Cadillac and a great team so we\u2019re super excited. We\u2019ll stay out\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0trouble and be there for the later hours. We\u2019d love to be able to do this for our hometown fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 56th running\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the Rolex 24 At\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0takes the green flag at\u00a02:40 p.m. EST<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on Saturday, with live TV coverage beginning at\u00a02:00 p.m. EST<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on FOX.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daytona\u00a0Beach, Fla. (25 January, 2018) \u2013 The hometown team will start from the inside\u00a0of\u00a0the third row for this weekend\u2019s Rolex 24 At\u00a0Daytona, as\u00a0Spirit\u00a0of\u00a0DaytonaRacing put its No. [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-848","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\/848","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=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}