Nearly 30 entries are expected to participate in December's two-day Grand-Am Rolex Series test at Daytona International Speedway on Dec. 6-7, featuring a variety of new cars and teams.
While GM unveiled its Corvette DP in November, the car ran its first shakedown laps the next two days. The four announced Corvettes make up more than half of the seven DP class entrants for the test, with Spirit of Daytona Racing joined on track by the two Action Express Corvettes and the SunTrust Racing Corvette, which sports a new white livery for 2012 (ABOVE). Corvette squad GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing is not on the entry list, nor is TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, who await delivery of its new third generation Riley DP.
The GT class features several American Le Mans Series teams making their Daytona testing debuts. Ferrari squads Extreme Speed Motorsports and Risi Competitizione are both in action at Daytona, ESM with its usual ALMS lineup of Scott Sharp, Ed Brown, Johannes van Overbeek and Guy Cosmo, while Risi will run Raphael Matos and Toni Vilander. Risi has not confirmed its participation in this year's Rolex 24 but is believed to be considering an entry into the event.
Porsche stalwarts TRG fields five cars, with Magnus Racing running two and defending class champions Brumos Racing back with Hurley Haywood joining Andrew Davis and Leh Keen. Magnus will see its newest driver, 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup rookie-of-the-year Andy Lally, make his debut in one of the team's two Porsche GT3 Cup cars. ALMS GTC class champion Tim Pappas also makes an appearance in an Orbit Racing-entered Porsche; Pappas ran the 2011 Rolex in a jointly entered Black Swan/TRG/GMG Porsche GT3 Cup car.
Porsche leads with 13 of 22 entries in class, with three Ferraris, two Ford Mustangs and a singular Mazda RX-8, Dodge Viper, Chevrolet Camaro GT.R and BMW M3 apiece. Mazda only has one entry for the test from Dempsey Racing, with the second Dempsey entry and SpeedSource's No. 70 Mazda not listed as of Monday.