New Corvette Daytona Prototypes Ready for this Weekend’s 50th Anniversary Rolex 24

Chevrolet is ready to kick off the GRAND-AM Racing 2012 season as five new Corvette Daytona Prototypes are ready for their first combat mission at this weekend’s Rolex 24 at the Daytona International Speedway. The five Corvette DPs will allow Chevrolet to challenge for the overall win at the Rolex 24 for the first time in 11 years. Also competing at the Rolex 24 under the Team Chevy banner are three Camaros running in the GT class.

The new Corvette Daytona Prototypes made their debut last November. Four teams will run the five new prototypes: Action Express Racing, fielding the No. 5 Corvette DP and the No. 9 Corvette DP, SunTrust Racing Corvette DP No. 10, No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP and the No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP.

At the Roar Before the 24 testing session, all five of the Corvette Daytona Prototypes took a turn at the top of the speed charts.

“This is an exciting time for Chevrolet,” said Mark Kent, GM Racing Director. “We roll into the 50th anniversary of the famed Rolex 24 with the new Corvette Daytona Prototype. Our engineers worked tirelessly with all of our teams, preparing the best possible packages for all of our Chevrolet entries in three classes. That collaboration has resulted in what we believe will be an extraordinarily competitive effort by our teams in DP, GT and GS. We were encouraged by our teams’ performances at the Roar Before the 24, and we are ready to get going in 2012.”

We’ll be paying special attention to the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette Daytona Prototype as the drivers are all from the ALMS Corvette Racing program. Here are the teams and drivers racing under the Team Chevy banner:

Driver line-ups for the Corvette Daytona Prototypes:

• No. 5 Action Express Racing Chevrolet Corvette DP
  David Donohue, Darren Law, Christian Fittapaldi
  
  
• No. 9 Action Express Racing Chevrolet Corvette DP
  Joao Barbosa, Terry Borcheller, JC France, Max Papis
  
  
• No. 10 SunTrust Racing Chevrolet Corvette DP
  Max Angelellli, Ricky Taylor, Ryan Briscoe
  
  
• No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Chevrolet Corvette DP
  Antonio Garcia, Richard Westbrook, Oliver Gavin, Jan Magnussen
  
  
• No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Chevrolet Corvette DP
  Alex Gurney, Jon Fogarty, Memo Gidley

Driver line-ups for the Rolex 24 GT Class Camaros:

• No. 88 Autohaus Motorsports Camaro GT.R
  Jordan Taylor, Paul Edwards, Tommy Milner, Matthew Marsh
  
  
• No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R
  Robin Liddell, John Edwards, Robbie Bremer
  
  
• No. 75 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R
  Al Carter, Hugh Plumb, Eric Curran

Also racing the Rolex 24 GT class is one lone Corvette, the No. 46 Corvette from Michael Baughman Racing. Driving the No. 46 Corvette will be Ivo Breukers, Armand Fumal and Feff Nowicki.

The Green Flag for the 50th Rolex 24 at Daytona is Saturday, January 28th at 3:30 pm ET with the checkered flag falling at 3:30pm ET on Sunday, January 29th. SPEED will provide coverage of the race from 2:30 – 11PM ET on Saturday and 9:00 am to 4:00 PM on Sunday. The race will also be streamed live on SPEED.com.

Source:
Team Chevy
Photo Credit: Oliver Gavin

Related:
GRAND-AM: Oliver Gavin to Drive Corvette DP for Spirit of Daytona
Westbrook to Drive Corvette DP for Spirit of Daytona
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[VIDEO] Corvette Daytona Prototype Turns First Laps
Chevrolet Unveils 2012 Corvette Daytona Prototype