United SportsCar Championship looks to fix rules before Roar
The balance between the new breed of Daytona Prototype and LMP2 machinery in the top class of the United SportsCar Championship is set to be fixed before the traditional pre-Daytona 24 Hours test in early January
USC technical boss Scot Elkins believes that enough data can be accrued during testing last week and this, as well as in the windtunnel, to allow the Balance of Performance to be fixed ahead of the 'Roar before the Rolex' test at Daytona on January 3-5.
Elkins, who is vice-president of competition and technical regulations at USC sanctioning body IMSA, said: "We feel like this is the only way to stop the sand-bagging that has historically happened at the Roar test.
"By not changing the regulations between the test and the race, we hope to have true representative performance."
Elkins suggested that the process of balancing DPs and P2s, which has been ongoing since the immediate aftermath of the announcement of the US sportscar merger in September 2012, was progressing well, while adding the caveat that "we have a long way to go".
The lone new-specification DP present at last weekend's official USC test at Sebring, the Action Express Coyote-Chevrolet, set a best time of 1m53.266s in the hands of Joao Barbosa.
That compared with a fastest lap of 1m57.812s set by Ryan Dalziel in the only the P2 present, Extreme Speed Motorsports' HPD ARX-03b.
This time was six seconds slower than this year's P2 pole lap for the Sebring 12 Hours and was not representative of the car's capabilities, even with the 60kg of ballast and the switch to the Continental control tyre, courtesy of a throttle problem that dogged the car over the course of the two days.
Elkins suggested that it is likely that the amount of ballast to be added to the P2s to balance them with the new DPs would likely be reduced.
"Now with carbon brakes and lighter batteries we can get weight out of the DP, which should allow us to reduce the weight added on the P2," he explained.
Testing continues at Daytona today and tomorrow when two revised Riley chassis are due.
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