'It's not an exhibition': NASCAR stars taking the Rolex 24 seriously

Yesterday at 12:01 PM

Every year, the number of NASCAR stars wanting to take on the Rolex 24 At Daytona increases, and 2024 is no different with another stock car-based, star-studded line-up for the event.

Looking back over the history books, it won't take you long to find big-name NASCAR winners of this event, anyone from stock car moonlighter A.J. Foyt, to Jeff Gordon and more recently Kyle Larson. But there's far more to this than some drivers from another series treating it as a bit of off-season fun before the Daytona 500 season kicks off NASCAR's slate of events proper, or the fact that NASCAR owns IMSA.

"It’s not an exhibition for me — I’m committed," 2022 Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric – driving a GTD PRO class Multimatic Ford Mustang – tells RACER. He wasn't even expecting to do the race, until the team’s driver Ben Barker broke his collarbone skiing.

"I’m committed to doing whatever it takes," he adds. "If that means letting Rocky and Seb do their thing, because it’s their car, I’m committed to that.

"If I got to give them a foot rub in the middle of the night, hell, I’ll do that. I’ve done this race enough times, I have enough experience where I definitely feel like I will be an asset to this team. I’ll be the one-off, so I’m excited to get to work and see where I fit into that fold. But, yeah, it’s an important race for me."

Cindric is the perfect NASCAR driver to poll on why it feels like more and more stock car drivers do, or want to do, the event. This is a "wild, full-circle moment" for him because his first visit to Daytona was 10 years ago, also with Multimatic in a Mustang, as he took on what is now the Michelin Pilot Challenge.

"Now with LMDh machinery, it’s really kind of boomed – a new era – and I think that’s been really exciting to see a lot of the continued interest in the series, because it’s a great series," Cindric says.

"It’s important for someone like me, because I want to do Le Mans one day.  The year that it fits on the schedule, I promise you I’ll do whatever it takes to get there, and the closer the relationship can be between WEC and IMSA… I think it’s just better for everybody."

Another perfect person to discuss the crossover is Parker Kligerman, who has raced at every level in NASCAR but also worked as an announcer and TV personality on the Rolex 24 for years. This year he'll race the No. 78 GTD Lamborghini entry of Forte Racing.

"You look at the field and the amount of cars and the professionalism of the teams, what’s happened is just out of this world," Kligerman tells RACER. He says attendance on race day has "absolutely exploded" in the six years he's been part of it.

He reckons GT3 cars are closer to NASCAR's next-gen car than the previous rule set, even if there's a lot of electronics involved on the sports car side, and that NASCAR's calendar moving to a heavier road course set-up has also made Daytona more valuable to NASCAR drivers. In turn, that calendar switch has raised people's opinion on NASCAR drivers too, according to Kligerman.

"People are realizing that top NASCAR talent, they are very versatile drivers," he says. "We don’t just go left.

"Historically, obviously sports cars has been way more connected with IndyCar and that sort of thing, and now I think people are giving credit to the talent that’s in NASCAR and this type of racing."

You might well look at this year's entry list and think, yes, there are a few NASCAR drivers, but it's not like there are double-figures or a massive influx. But it is worth remembering that a side-effect of the boom in IMSA's popularity, and this event especially, is that entries are harder to come by than they would have been five or 10 years ago. Even drivers bringing significant budget can miss out in the brutal IMSA driver market.

So the fact there's four significant, regular NASCAR drivers competing and even more – like Rockenfeller and Kamui Kobayashi, who have made one-off NASCAR starts and also show more road-course-based drivers want to go the other way to NASCAR, too – is a really big deal. More will have wanted to do it and missed out in a field where demand outweighs supply in terms of entries available.

The duo we haven't got to yet are Trackhouse pair Shane van Gisburgen and Connor Zilisch. They'll co-drive the No. 91 GTD PRO Chevrolet Corvette (pictured, top) with IndyCar star Scott McLaughlin and someone you may describe as king of the am drivers, Ben Keating. He’s certainly one of the best out there.

McLaughlin and van Gisbergen in themselves are a fascinating story. They're friends now but were intense "enemies" in their Australian Supercars days, so joining together in the same car was an absolutely massive story in their native New Zealand and took some people by surprise.

"Ever since he left Supercars, we’ve been thinking about how we can drive together," says van Gisbergen, who will begin his first full season of Cup Series racing at Daytona next month in the No. 88 Trackhouse Chevrolet. "It was a dream of both of ours one day. This is a cool way to do it and hopefully it leads to more.

"I’d love to learn off him, too. He’s obviously an amazing driver and talent and I’ve only ever been against him; never really in the same team. So yeah, looking forward to seeing how he works and approaches things, too."

Van Gisbergen's teammate Zilisch also sees the opportunity for learning. As the teams in IMSA get stronger and the driver line-ups get better, the opportunity to learn and therefore the value for doing the event increases.

"You learn techniques and tricks getting to share data with Shane and Scott and Ben,” he says. “So to learn techniques and things that they do to go faster is obviously going to be valuable as well."

Of the four drivers we’ve spoken to in this story, Zilisch is the youngest but is the only winner so far, having taken the LMP2 class win last year on his debut with ERA Motorsports. The 18-year-old will race Xfinity this year full-time with JR Motorsports in the No. 88.

"Winning a Rolex is nothing light!" Zilisch tells RACER. "Me, Shane, everybody, all my teammates, we’ve talked about it and how bad we want to win this race. I’ve already got that first one checked off, but you’ve got two wrists for a reason…"

It's another show of how this event is not just for fun for these drivers. The drivers coming in are not allowed to just turn up and participate. It's really no joke.

Zilisch also points out another way this race can actually help with the NASCAR season, too.

"In NASCAR, there’s very little practice, minimal practice. You get 15 or 20 minutes at every track you go to, and it’s tough,” he says. “You don’t get a lot of time to just experiment. It’s gonna be really good to have a lot of time on the track and really get warmed up before the season."

There are interesting back stories behind all of the NASCAR drivers competing at Daytona. It’s a great thing for IMSA to be able to welcome drivers from all over motorsport’s rich tapestry, but boasting NASCAR stars can only help raise the event’s profile even further.

And the fact that those NASCAR drivers aren’t taking any part of IMSA or this race lightly is the added bonus for all of the fans watching.