27 Cars Entered for 2012 Grand Am Rolex Miami Grand Prix

Nine Daytona Prototypes and 18 GT cars are entered for Sunday’s Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series Grand Prix of Miami.
27 Cars Entered for 2012 Grand Am Rolex Miami Grand Prix
The Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge offers large, diverse fields and very competitive racing. (Grandam.com)
Chris Jasurek
4/23/2012
Updated:
4/23/2012
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/aWebBarberWinnersGTDP.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-225895" title="aWebBarberWinnersGTDP" src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/aWebBarberWinnersGTDP-676x380.jpg" alt="The two class winners do battle at Barber Motorsports Park: the #90 Spirit of Daytona Coyote Corvette DP (R) fights past the #70 SpeedSource Mazda RX-8. (Grandam.com)" width="750" height="422"/></a>
The two class winners do battle at Barber Motorsports Park: the #90 Spirit of Daytona Coyote Corvette DP (R) fights past the #70 SpeedSource Mazda RX-8. (Grandam.com)

Nine Daytona Prototypes and 18 GT cars are entered for Sunday’s Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series Grand Prix of Miami at Miami Homestead Speedway.

The Daytona Prototype field hasn’t changed since the Porsche 250 at Barber Motorsports Park in March, where Antonio Garcia and Richard Westbrook earned Spirit of Daytona its first DP win, and third place in the team championship. Garcia and Westbrook are tied for second in drivers’ points.

<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/AWebStarworks8GAcom1.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-225899" title="AWebStarworks8GAcom" src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/AWebStarworks8GAcom1.jpg" alt="The #8 Starworks Riley-Ford leads the Daytona Prototype points race. (Grandam.com)" width="470" height="313"/></a>
The #8 Starworks Riley-Ford leads the Daytona Prototype points race. (Grandam.com)

Starworks Motorsport will be back with two Riley-Fords including the series-leading #8 driven by Ryan Dalziel and Enzo Potolichio, who also lead the drivers’ standings.

Lucas Luhr and Alex Popow, third in the drivers’ standings, will drive the #2 Starworks machine.

Michael Shank Racing is bringing its Rolex 24-winning #60 Riley Ford, which sits second in the standings after two races. Oz Negri and John Pew, tied for second in drivers’ points, will be back behind the wheel.

The rest of the regulars: Telmex-Ganassi, SunTrust, Gainsco-Stallings will all be back to try to reclaim their places at the top of the pack. These once-dominant teams have had some hard luck so far this season, and will be eager to change that.

GT: Some New, Some Out

GT will lose one car overall for the Homestead-Miami round, but will gain two teams.

Oryx racing has decided not to enter because team owner and co-driver Humaid Al-Masaood has business in his native Saudi Arabia and won’t be back in time for the race. The team’s bright yellow Audi R8 Grand Am will be back for later rounds.

Rick Ware Racing and its Ford Mustang, co-driven by Jeff Earnhardt and Chris Cook, will also skip this round, and Team Sahlen will be bringing two rather than three Mazda RX-8s.

Extreme Speed Motorsports has entered its #03 Ferrari 458 Grand Am, piloted by ALMS regulars Ed Brown and Guy Cosmo. ESM contested the Rolex 24 but sat out Barber. ESM has two seasons of experience racing the Ferrari 458 in the American Le Mans Series; they have never raced at Miami-Homestead but that shouldn’t slow them down.

M2 Autosport, with brothers Julian and Sebastian Martinez, assisted by Mario Monroy, will race its SpeedSource-prepared #65 Mazda MX-8 at Miami. This Colombian team has competed in the Rolex series in select events for the past two years; this will be their Miami-Homestead debut.

Next: Full Weekend of Racing

<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/AwebContiBarberGAcom.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-225897" title="AwebContiBarberGAcom" src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/AwebContiBarberGAcom-676x427.jpg" alt="The Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge offers large, diverse fields and very competitive racing. (Grandam.com)" width="750" height="474"/></a>
The Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge offers large, diverse fields and very competitive racing. (Grandam.com)

Full Weekend of Racing

Along with the Rolex Sports Car Series, the Continental Tire Sports car Challenge will be racing this weekend at Miami-Homestead. Regularly hailed by fans as some of the best GT road racing in North America, this series always brings huge fields of competitive cars. Miami-Homestead will be no different: 69 cars are entered for Saturday’s Kia 200, 30 in Grand Sport and 39 in Street Tuner.

This will be a weekend packed with racing action. Miami-Homestead’s 11-turn, 2.3 mile road course offers unique challenges because it includes part of the high-banked oval course; cars have to be set up and trimmed out to run fast on the banking while still being complaint and sticky enough to weave through the tight infield turns. This course tests engineers and drivers, makes it a treat for fans.

Tickets to the race weekend can be purchased through the Miami-Homestead Speedway website.

The Rolex Grand Prix of Miami will be televised live on Speed TV starting at 1 p.m. EDT, Sunday, April 29. The CTSCC Kia 200 will air on Speed on May 12 at 12 noon EDT.