[h=2]IMSA's GT Daytona class loaded with GT3 exotica[/h] Friday, 27 January 2017


Marshall Pruett / Images by Richard Dole and LAT

There are no rooms left at the GT Daytona Hotel.
The overflowing success of IMSA's GT3-based GTD class has been a blessing for the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. As its most populated category, the enriched offerings from Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Dodge, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche transformed the 2016 season into a vision of supercar lunacy.


Built upon a blended Pro-Am formula, IMSA's GTD class is driven by its global GT3 underpinnings and the light factory assistance from the brands involved. These dream machines, each carrying steep six-figure price tags, are typically sold for independent use.
Looking to 2017, "typical" will no longer be used to describe GTD.
Thanks to marauding newcomers Acura, Lexus and Mercedes-AMG, norms will be tested this year as three additional brands with direct factory involvement – all dead set on whipping the old guard into submission – storm the GTD ranks.
Even with the might of automotive giants behind some programs, finding an edge, especially with so many distinct cars being equalized under IMSA's Balance of Performance rules, has become the obsessive pursuit for every manufacturer.
In this diverse group, winning is IMSA's most elusive prize. The secret to capturing it, according to Acura NSX GT3 team owner Michael Shank, takes place before the season gets under way.
"Testing!" roars the Ohioan. "It's not a simple answer, but with us having such a new car we have to get our balance. The series is so tight. You have first to 15th covered in seven or eight tenths of a second. If we want to win, it starts with testing. We're going to have to get our chassis balance better and work on our raceability between all of the drivers."
For privateers and works-affiliated programs alike, the GT3 rules make standing out in a packed GTD crowd harder than anything found in other IMSA categories. And that's by design.
"Again, that's because everything is regulated so tightly," Shank says. "All the little advantages will end up as a two- or three-tenths gain at a place like Daytona. Every detail has to be looked at. It's going to be all of the little stuff. And we've been in a spec series like this, in the Toyota Atlantic series back in the late 90s, early 2000s - it was the very same thing. Where we have cars with very equal capability, the difference was spending an extra day on the shaker rig, spending an extra day in the wind tunnel. Anything we could do to maximize the legal testing window."
Across the GTD divide, Shank's Acuras and the rest of the new brands will find staunch opposition from veteran teams like Stevenson Motorsports and its proven Audi R8s. But keeping the factories at bay and mired somewhere off the podium, won't be easy.
"It's great to have three newcomers to the series, not only for Stevenson Motorsports, but for Audi as well," says Stevenson team manager Mike Johnson. "It's important for all manufacturers to be able to compete against each other on a level playing field. However, none of the [inbound factory] teams are new to IMSA, and they are all very skilled or they wouldn't have been chosen by those manufacturers.
"It will be very difficult to get any real edge on anybody and I expect to see multiple winners this season. The challenge with GT3 is that with all the downforce and driver aids, passing is very difficult, so it just makes qualifying, pit stops, and minimizing mistakes all that more important. We are excited for that challenge ahead."
If all the teams – the GTD veterans and even the first-timers – have done their pre-season homework, logged countless miles in testing, then shaken and tunneled their cars without mercy, where might the final differentiator between winning and losing be found?
"Decision making," Shank exclaims. "If you've done everything possible outside the car, the last place to look is inside that cockpit between the green flag and the checkers. Our drivers have to be better decision makers, period."
Acura, with its torquey twin-turbo V6 powerplant, pitted against Lexus and its brawling RC F, challenged by Mercedes-AMG and its nightmare-inducing V8 engine, is a brilliant match on its own. Throw the R8s, M6 GT3s, 488 GT3s, Huracán GT3s and 911 GT3 Rs into the GTD cage, and it's going to be one heck of a rumble.