By Don Coble, Special to Florida Sports Wire
DAYTONA BEACH – The Rolex 24 at Daytona is all about dealing with challenges. There’s speed and a thousand moving parts under the hood. There are 60 other cars with the same goal to finish first on the track – all at the same time.
And there’s fatigue, sunshine, darkness and more sunshine.
America’s most prestigious sports car endurance race also creates a high-speed traffic jam with four classes of sleek prototypes and slower GT cars racing simultaneously, like a Ferarri against a Kia on an open highway.
Last year, the winning Porsche prototype logged 791 laps on the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway road course – 2,815.96 miles – while the class-winning GT Ferrari was 206.48 miles – 58 laps – behind.
If that wasn’t enough, the No. 64 Ford Mustang GT3 for Mike Rockenfeller, Sebastian Priaulx and Austin Cindric created their own burden with their lineup. Ben Barker was supposed to be the third driver on the GT Daytona Pro team, but he broke his collarbone skiing in the offseason, so Ford Motorsports reached into its talent pool and picked NASCAR’s Cindric, the 2022 Daytona 500 winner.
On the surface, it was a smart pick since he won Xfinity Series races at Watkins Glen International and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 2019, Road America and the Daytona Road Course in 2020 and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course in 2021. And since the car for the 24-hour race is a Ford Mustang, the adjustment curve won’t be severe.
But there is one glaring glitch. Cindric is 6-foot-3. Rockenfeller is 5-9; Priaulx if 5-7. Unlike a passenger car, the seat and steering wheel in an IMSA sports car aren’t adjustable.
Rockenfeller and Priaulx will have to insert thick insert between their backs and the seat to reach the pedals and the steering wheel following a driver change. No driver may be behind the wheel for more than four hours in six hours. Each driver on the team must work at least two hours.
The 63rd running of the twice-around-the-clock race will start at 1:40 p.m. Saturday on a layout that includes portions of the high-banked superspeedway and flat infield road course.
“It’s crazy competitive, and I would say more competitive than last year, for sure,” he said. “It’s going to be tough. I think we saw throughout the sessions we are clearly good on one lap. We struggle a bit more over a stint with our tires. We will have to fight a lot, and that’s good. You know, it’s 24 hours. Everybody should have a good chance here. If you don’t make mistakes, if you stay out of the pits and if keep the wheels turning, I think that’s the key at the end to be there.”
Rockenfeller qualified the car first in class and 25th overall.
Cindric also has experience running in the Michelin Pilot Challenge support series around the Rolex 24-hour race.
“In 2025, it’ll be 10 years exactly since the first time I came down to Daytona to race for Multimatic and Ford in Michelin Pilot Challenge,” Cindric said. “That nervous 16-year-old would be happy to learn where things would be 10 years on. Needless to say, there are a lot of familiar faces. I’m grateful to get the nod and look forward to getting to work soon.”
