{"id":23092,"date":"2019-01-25T17:20:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T23:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=23092"},"modified":"2019-01-27T17:28:19","modified_gmt":"2019-01-27T23:28:19","slug":"nascar-connections-abound-in-2019-rolex-24-at-daytona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/25\/nascar-connections-abound-in-2019-rolex-24-at-daytona\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR connections abound in 2019 Rolex 24 At Daytona"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 It may still be three weeks until the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> season-opening Daytona 500<\/strong>, but there is a distinct NASCAR<\/strong> presence at Daytona International Speedway<\/strong> this weekend for IMSA\u2019s Rolex 24<\/strong> endurance race (Saturday, 2 p.m. ET on NBCSN).<\/p>\n

\"\"

Prototype cars race into turn one at the start of the Rolex 24 at Daytona at Daytona International Speedway on January 30, 2016 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Brian Cleary\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be working for the NBC Sports crew covering the Rolex 24, a race he competed in twice.<\/p>\n

His newest NBC broadcast teammate A.J. Allmendinger will be pulling double duty at Daytona \u2013 working on television and racing in the No. 86 GTD Class Acura NSX GT3 for Meyer Shank Racing.<\/p>\n

It is the 13th<\/sup> Rolex start for Allmendinger, a former Monster Energy Series race winner who recently stepped away from full-time NASCAR competition. He was a member of the 2012 overall winning Rolex team and he is co-driving with another NASCAR veteran this weekend, Justin Marks \u2013 a former NASCAR Xfinity Series race winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s an honor to be a part of NBC Sports and have this opportunity,\u2019\u2019 Allmendinger said. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026I\u2019ve still got a lot of work to put in (for television), but I\u2019m learning from two of the best [in veteran sportscar broadcasters Leigh Diffey and Calvin Fish]. It\u2019s unique this weekend, kinda running back and forth. Usually, before the race, you\u2019re kinda standing around a lot, don\u2019t have a lot of time before you get in the race car, but they\u2019ve definitely got my schedule busy and I\u2019m enjoying it. I have this unique challenge and I feel really fortunate.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at this Saturday and Sunday schedule, they didn\u2019t write in anywhere that I\u2019m sleeping, so trying to get as much sleep as I can on Wednesday and Thursday and tonight,\u2019\u2019 he said smiling. “It\u2019s awesome though. The Rolex 24 is one of my favorite races I\u2019ve ever been a part of.”<\/p>\n

Joining Allmendinger and Marks on the grid is another former Cup driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, who now leads one of Acura Team Penske\u2019s full-time IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championships efforts.<\/p>\n

Austin Cindric, a 19-year old Team Penske Xfinity Series star, will co-drive a GTD class Lexus for the AIM Vasser Sullivan team in the Rolex 24. He warmed up with a fifth-place finish in Friday afternoon\u2019s IMSA MICHELIN Pilot Challenge race, teaming with another NASCAR Xfinity Series driver, Chase Briscoe.<\/p>\n

Last season\u2019s Xfinity Series championship runner-up Cole Custer competed in Friday\u2019s race, teaming with part-time NASCAR driver Ty Majeski and Scott Maxwell to earn a ninth-place finish. Another popular NASCAR driver, Kaz Grala, made his second start in the MICHELIN Pilot Challenge Race, but his Grand Sport (GS) class Audi had mechanical problems and he finished 39th<\/sup> in the 49-car field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was definitely a wild one, an eventful weekend,\u2019\u2019 Grala said smiling. \u201cI just like to come do this because it\u2019s a total change of pace. There are very few similarities between the NASCAR garage and over here in IMSA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love doing NASCAR and want to keep doing that, but this is a lot of fun to do every now and then to have a change of pace and see how they do things.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Although Grala was disappointed with Friday\u2019s results in the Michelin Pilot Challenge, he said he leaves the track hopeful of good news soon and to announce plans to race in the upcoming Xfinity Series schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 It may still be three weeks until the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season-opening Daytona 500, but there is a distinct NASCAR presence at Daytona International Speedway this weekend for IMSA\u2019s Rolex 24 endurance race (Saturday, 2 p.m. ET on NBCSN). Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":23098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[287,7,669],"class_list":["post-23092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-motorsports","tag-rolex-24-at-daytona"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/IMSA-Rolex24-013016.jpg?fit=4183%2C2789&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-60s","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23092"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23099,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23092\/revisions\/23099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}