Florida Sports Wire

  By Don Coble, Special to Florida Sports Wire   DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Few things are probable in racing, especially in a 24-hour endurance race. However, the combined forces of Roger Penske’s resources and Nick Tandy’s experience proved to be a grouping destined to win the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Penske won America’s iconic twice-around-the-clock race a year ago with the same No. 7 Porsche 963, but he only returned one driver – Felipe Nasr. He added Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor, and the trio were the class of the GT Prototype division in conditions that included wind gusts and bitter cold early and warmer temperatures in the final six hours. In the process, Tandy became the most complete endurance driver in sports car history. He is the only person to win every major endurance race – the 24 Hours of Daytona, Le Mans, Spa-Francorchamps and the Nürburgring. “And some (three 12-hour) Sebrings and a Petit LeMans (at Road Atlanta) is dream-come-true stuff,” Tandy said. Tand...

  By Don Coble, Special to Florida Sports Wire DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Staying awake for more than 22 hours and driving bumper-to-bumper will likely cause road rage. But when it appeared two team cars ganged up to knock the leading GT Daytona Pro car out of the lead with less than two hours remaining in the 63 rd Rolex 24 at Daytona, road rage turned to seething discontent for Chevrolet Corvette Tommy Milner. Milner seemed to have a reason to be angry. A BMW M4 GT3 EVO driven by Augusto Farfus for Paul Miller Racing was running three laps down and 12 th in class. The car left the pit road shortly before Milner, and second-place Connor De Phillippi in another Paul Miller BMW made a pit stop. Farfus didn’t get up to speed when he returned to the track. When Milner caught him on track, Farfus moved left and right around the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway 3.56-mile road course, seemingly to block Milner and help De Phillippi make a pass. De Phillippi saw an opening when...

 By Don Coble, Special to Florida Sports Wire DAYTONA BEACH – Nobody knows racing better than Roger Penske. His 20 victories in the Indianapolis 500 are a milestone that won’t be matched. He also has 17 IndyCar Series championships and is the reigning car owner for the IMSA GT Prototype and NASCAR Series champions. A year ago, he watched as his four-driver tandem took the checkered flag at the Rolex 24 at Daytona after they completed 791 laps – about 2,816 miles – in a Porsche 963 to beat a Cadillac prototype by 2.112 seconds after racing for 24 hours. So what did the man motorsports calls “The Captain” do? Replaced three of the drivers. The only driver returning to the No. 7 Porsche is Brazilian Felipe Nasr. Gone were two-time defending Indy 500 Champion Josef Newgarden, Dane Cameron and Matt Campbell, replaced by Nick Tandy of Great Britain and Laurens Vanthoor of Belgium. The only thing that remained the same was that the car still had consistent speed. “This is the best time of...