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 April     The Porsche Powered Daytona Prototypes (DP)

What is a Daytona Prototype
The Daytona Prototype is the new premier class of the Rolex Sports Car Series. It features purpose-built, closed cockpit race cars powered by production-based engines.

Porsche Powered Fabcar

Daytona Prototypes have very little resemblance to regular production vehicles. The chassis is a steel tube/aluminum semi-monocoque hybrid. The chassis must be approved by Grand American and fit published parameters. Fabcar, Multimatic, Picchio, Riley & Scott and Crawford are among the chassis already approved to be raced in this class, powered by Porsche, Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, Maserati and BMW engines.

History of the Grand-Am Prototype
 The Grand-Am was founded in 1999 out of the ashes of the defunct Sports Car Club of America-sanctioned United States Road Racing Championship, or USRRC, which itself had been formed in 1998.


The sanctioning body was backed by a diverse group of racing businessmen, including Skip Barber, Roger Penske and Rob Dyson, but was primarily owned by Jim France, who also holds a stake in NASCAR. Organizational headquarters were established next door to NASCAR's complex in Daytona Beach, Florida, further cementing in the eyes of many the link between the two groups.

The two Brumos Fabcars

One of the very first Porsche powered Daytona prototypes was the Fabcar and was based on the Boxster engine, today the Porsche prototypes packs the 3.99L GT3R Flat 6 Engine.

In 2003 Bell Motorsports captured the North American Road Racing Championship and Terry Borcheller took the first-ever Daytona Prototypes driver championship with the No. 54 Chevrolet Doran JE4's victory today in the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series 250-mile finale, part of the Grand American Champions Weekend presented by Brumos Porsche at Daytona International Speedway.

New kids on the block

New to 2006 Alex Job Racing

New to prototype racing and the Rolex Sports Car Series this year is the successful Porsche GT2 racing team, Alex Job Racing.

The Crawford Porsche Powered Daytona prototype has made a big impact in this years series with a podium finish at the 24 Hours of Daytona and a win at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, co-drivers Patrick Long and Mike Rockenfeller earned their first career Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Special Reserve victories and gave Porsche its first Rolex Series overall victory in two-and-a-half years.

Truspeed Motorsports

Also racing prototypes for the first time at Miami was TruSpeed Motorsports, with the Querencia Golf Club/TruSpeed Motorcars/Wright Motorsports Porsche Riley. The owner/drivers are veteran sportscar racers, father and son Charles and Rob Morgan.

Synergy Racing's Doran Porsche

In order to make sports car racing less expensive than elsewhere, new rules were introduced in 2002. The dedicated Daytona Prototypes (DP) do not use expensive materials and technologies, and simple aerodynamics reduce the often highly expensive effort of development and testing. On the other hand, especially the rather big and wide closed cockpits with their full size roll cages look clumsy compared to the slim, sophisticated and fast Audi R8, BMW V12, Porsche 911 GT1, Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR and others that dominated Sportscar racing elsewhere since the late 1990s.

         Porsche Power with flames

However, the "clumsy" look has been able to control speeds and aerodynamic controversies for safety, something which has been an issue at Le Mans in recent years.

The Rolex 24 Hours Of Daytona 2006

In the 2006 event, teams which are traditionally linked to Porsche made an effort to "reconquer" Daytona, like the Brumos Team which has fielded Porsche's traditionally numbered as No 58 and No 59 since the 1970s. Porsche factory drivers were also scattered around the teams running Porsche engines in their DPs, and it was German Lucas Luhr who set the pole position time with the No 23 Porsche-Crawford of Alex Job. In the race, the car that was also driven by Mike Rockenfeller (D) and Patrick Long (USA) led for some time, but lost time during a repair of a drive shaft, and finished only 3rd ahead of the No 58 Red Bull Brumos Porsche Junior Sascha Maassen (D). Two Lexus-Rileys finished 1-2, with Target Chip Ganassi's all-star line-up of Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon and Casey Mears taking the overall win.

Red Bull Fabcar

 2006 is looking good for Porsche Motorsport

With the new LMP1 Sypder in the ALMS and with the new Daytona prototypes in the Grand-Am the future looks bright for Porsche Motorsport, the Porsche DS's are starting to turn heads and other manufactures are starting to look over there shoulders, the Porsche Powered Crawford will be the one to look out for this year

  Alex Job Racing

If you like to learn more on any of the Porsche Powered Daytona prototypes please visit the links on the right hand side of the page
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Specifications

Fabcar un-skined
  • Closed cockpit purpose-built prototypes
  • Normally-aspirated (5.5 liter max) engines with restrictions to balance performance
  • Full-width roll cage
  • 18 x 14-inch maximum wheel diameter and width
  • Steel brakes
  • Chassis design must have prior approval by Grand American
  • Spec wing
  • Working headlights and brake lights
  • Six-speed sequential gearbox
  • Flat bottom
  • Weight: 2,100 to 2,175 pounds, depending on engine size
     Daytona Prototypes Logo

   Porsche Power
Above, the engine of the Porsche  Powered Crawford

     Inside the Porsche crawford
Above, the cockpit of the Porsche Powered Crawford
Daytona Porsche Powered Manufactures Links

Fabcar Motorsports

Crawford Racecars

Riley Technologies

Doran Enterprises Inc

New for 2006
In an effort to bolster the competition even further, Grand American has prescribed new minimum weight limits, which will be effective when the Rolex Series makes its first visit to Long Beach next 8-4-06 for Round 4 of the 14-race series. Race cars using engines with a displacement smaller than 3.99 liters-such as the Porsche GT3 R Flat 6-must now weigh a minimum of 2,225 pounds, an increase of 75 pounds over the previous minimum.

Likewise, Daytona Prototypes using two-valve engines with a displacement of 4.51 to 5.0 liters-like the Pontiac 5.0-liter V8-have seen a minimum weight reduction of 25 pounds to 2,250. Additionally, the Porsche GT3R Flat 6 will now be subject to a 9,000 RPM limit.

    Xtrac gearbox
The Xtrac gearbox above
is used in the Porsche Powered Daytona Prototypes
In 2003, with the new DPs being few, slow and unreliable, even a road-car based Porsche 996 GT3-RS (The Racer's Group) has managed to win overall, despite only being entered in the 3rd fastest class.

Crawford Porsche Cheever Racing

Can I have one !

We asked the question to all the Porsche powered prototypes if there where any plans to produce a street legal Daytona prototype. Unfortuantly the answer was no.
Shame  they are such a good looking car we think they would sell like hot cakes 'if the price was right' mind you there would be no room for the shoping but all you 911 drivers should be used to that.