Under clear skies, the first official qualifying session for the ROLEX 24 AT DAYTONA was conducted on January 24th (Thu) and the trio of Mazda 6 GXs, equipped with SKYACTIV-D racing engines, successfully participated in the session.

The #25 Mazda 6 GX of Freedom Motorsports made a smooth start to proceedings, fully setting up the car in the morning's one-hour session.

Meanwhile, the #00 VISIT Florida car, with Yojiro Terada and four young drivers at the wheel, suffered some unusual trouble with the transponder (a lap time measuring device) provided by the organizers and ended up spending a large part of the session trying to fix its electric harness connection.

Since the cars were running well, the young drivers seemed a little nervous about the situation. Tristan Nunez, the youngest driver on the team, went out on track towards the end of the session after the transponder issue had been solved. He made his maiden three laps on the track of the DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, and enthusiastically commented: “The banking on this circuit is fantastic! I was thrilled. There are no issues with the car whatsoever!”

The vanguard of the three cars, the #70 SpeedSource machine tried different setups with the power unit but it didn't function well. After two laps, the car came into the box and spent the rest of the practice session changing the engine to a normal set up. The car was, however, ready in time for the qualifying session in the evening.

All three Mazda 6 GXs went out on the track when the 15-minute official qualifying session started at 4:10 p.m. All three cars were successful in qualifying for the race: the #25 Freedom Autosports car, driven by Andrew Carbonell, took 3rd position in class, the #00 VISIT Florida machine, with Joel Miller onboard, was 4th, while the #70 SpeedSource entry, driven by Tom Long, took 5th.