The racing season rarely has any down time. While the drivers may not be racing on your television or at a track near you, they are constantly testing and tweaking their cars before the season starts. In the WeatherTech Sports Car Championship the first real test of the vehicles in at the "Roar Before The 24." This takes place in early January every year at Daytona International Speedway. At this event you can see the new liveries for each team and the new cars that are being introduced for the season.
This season there are some big names that showed up to the Roar. Ford introduced the new Ford GT for the season. This was what most people who follow the sport were looking forward to the most. But there were some other big names making their debut in the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship. The biggest name that I noticed was Lamborghini. Last year when the season ended at Road Atlanta, the day before the Petit Le Mans there was a Lamborghini only race. I am not surprised to see the entries of Lamborghini.
In the last four years is when I discovered IMSA and the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship. Prior to this I was only really a NASCAR fan. People do not know the diference often times and think that all racing is a "Redneck" thing. The difference between NASCAR and IMSA is the cars and fanbase. The cars in NASCAR are the stereotypical stock cars that you see on the street with much bigger engines. The cars that run the circuit for IMSA are the exotics that every person loves to see. The cars range from Audi to Ferrari. You never know who you are going to see drive either.
Patrick Dempsey is just one person that you will see at the track either driving for his team or running it from the pit box. If you follow racing at all you will see drivers from all different classes of racing taking their shot at the podium. One other thing that is different is the length of the races. Most NASCAR races last three to four hours. IMSA races last anywhere from six hours to 24 hours. The races at the end of January in Daytona is the Rolex 24. That is right 24 hours. The drivers do not drive for 24 hours. Each team has a group of three or four drivers that race. Each driver will stay in the car for about three or four hours at a time. I believe that this makes IMSA a much more enjoyable thing to watch.
The biggest difference is that you get to interact with the drivers on a personal level while at the races. The ticket includes a pit pass. NASCAR makes you buy a separate ticket for the pits. That way you get to see the cars being worked on and view the race from different views since most of the tracks are huge road courses where you can only see one or two turns at a time. There is just something about being able to see a driver act like an actual human being that makes it so much more enjoyable.