Like everyone else in the new for 2023 GTP class, Action Express is gaining knowledge and track time with a new car, in the form of the factory backed Cadillac GTP-V.R with its newly designed 5.5 liter double overhead cam, naturally aspirated V8 engine to do battle against the smaller displacement turbo V6’s from Acura, and turbo V8’s from the German “Panzer division” shall we say, of Porsche and BMW. We have qualified sixth for the race in what was the most knockdown and drag out qualifying session I believe I have ever seen for a sports car endurance race. Acura ended up on the pole. We ended up sixth being pipped at the very end, out of the top five by one of the other Cadillac entries I believe from Ganassi Racing. In a wet night practice, Saturday night, one of the two new recruits to our team, and endurance driver, Jack Aitken, he uncorked the second fastest lap time of the final Free Practice in a steady drizzle around Daytona no less.
We sure thought that would bode well for qualifying. In the session itself, man oh man! It was cutthroat. There were hundredths if not thousandths of a second in it for the entire 20 minutes! I have never been wound up like a Swiss watch for a qualifying session in any kind of racing, let alone a sports car race, as I was today, and that includes in 2020 when I was physically at Daytona for the Rolex 24 back during the midway point of the old, yet well remembered, Daytona Prototype International era. These new cars from Cadillac, Porsche, Acura, and BMW, are spaceships. They put the Daytona Prototype International cars in the shade in terms of styling and performance. IMSA claims they are slower than the old DPi cars. Baloney! These cars are mega performers in every single way.
Mega performance is something we did have in the final free practice with new recruit Jack Aitken, and we were using every bit of it, wringing it out in qualifying with Pipo Derani, known as “the dynamo”, in the car. He was pushing just as hard as anyone else out there and we could only muster sixth place. It was so intense! I have never seen anything quite like it in all my years of following endurance sports car racing and all the different championships I look at for this blog. I was completely mesmerized by everything going on. Ultimately it was Acura and the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 that went to the top of the shop before the clock expired.
Look. We have a way to go from starting sixth. But I am completely confident we can get there. We have as good a driver lineup as anyone in this new class. I believe in my heart of hearts that Action Express can return to victory lane in the Rolex 24 after a long time between drinks. Acura, Porsche, BMW, and the other two Cadillac’s, I offer you a challenge, and that challenge is, when you see a red Cadillac come up in your rear-view mirror/camera, we want to race you, hard, and clean, and fair.
But at the same time, we are hungry for a slice of the victory pie and Expect to Win another Rolex 24. It ought to be a fun one to watch, kicking off next Saturday.
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