MZ RACING - DAYTONA 24 Hours 2011

DAYTONA 24-hour Race Bulletin
Quartet of RX-8s Qualify 14th - 17th in ROLEX GT Class
Thursday, January 27th: In fair weather conditions and temperatures reaching a maximum of 23 degrees Celsius, the Daytona Speedway (Florida) played host to the start of the American motor racing season as the schedule for the Daytona 24 Hours officially got underway.
Official Practice started in the morning, with the focus on determining grip levels on the extensively resurfaced 6km combined oval and infield track. A total of 15 Daytona Prototypes (DP) from the 24-hour race's main category were joined by 30 GT machines, all eagerly pounding round repeatedly.
Of the Mazda RX-8s in this year's 24-hour race, last year's champions SpeedSource have two cars entered, while Dempsey Racing and Team Sahlen each bring another pair to Daytona. Racer's Edge and new faces Yellow Dragon and Team Spenser Racing each have one car entered, for a total of 9 RX-8s on the grid.
Qualifying officially started at 16:15, for a fifteen-minute session that showed the Porsche GT3 and Camaro GT-R cars repeatedly swapping top times in the category. The session was trouble-free or the Mazda RX-8s, led by the #42 Team Sahlen car, followed by the #40 Dempsey entry, #70 SpeedSource car and its sister #69 machine, all covered by a mere 0.1 seconds.
Thursday night sees Daytona Practice before the final one-hour, forty-five minute session on Friday, allowing teams to make final adjustments prior to the start of the race.