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Testing report

Action Express tops the first day of November testing at Daytona

#9 Action Express Racing Corvette DP: Darren Law, Joao Barbosa

#9 Action Express Racing Corvette DP: Darren Law, Joao Barbosa

Michael C. Johnson

The Action Express Racing Corvette DP team led the way in the first of two days of Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series tests at the Daytona International Speedway on Tuesday.

Twenty Rolex Series cars – eight Daytona Prototypes and 12 GT entries – shared the 3.56-mile road course throughout the day. The same competitors are expected to see action on Wednesday.

When the day ended, Joao Barbosa put the Action Express team at the top of the speed charts with a lap at 126.473 miles per hour. During the day, Barbosa shared the driving assignment with new teammates Burt and Brian Frisselle and Christian Fittipaldi.

...it is always good to finish the day in front.

Joao Barbosa

Said Barbosa, “This is just a practice session and we are trying a number of adjustments. And we have a good margin to improve on. We have definitely improved upon our base set-up over that of a year ago. We are considerably faster than we were here in this year’s Rolex24. These two days of testing plus the “Roar before the 24” will help us a lot. We also learned a lot during the recent test in Kansas. Tomorrow, we want to improve upon our lap and although it doesn’t mean much, it is always good to finish the day in front.”

Ozz Negri took runner-up speed honors at 126.211 mph while driving the Michael Shank Racing Ford Riley. Alex Gurney had the third fastest speed of 125.985 mph in the GAINSCO Auto Insurance Corvette DP.

Earlier in the day, the GAINSCO team announced that Darren Law and Memo Gidley will join Gurney and Jon Fogarty for the upcoming 24-hour race.

Other DP teams seeing action were Wayne Taylor Racing, Team Sahlen and the Spirit of Daytona.

In GT action, newcomer and five time LeMans winner Frank Biela cranked off a lap of 117.629 mph in the Audi of America Audi R8.

In addition to the Rolex Series competitors, an American LeMans Series P2 team took to the track for a data gathering exercise in anticipation of the Grand-Am and ALMS merger that takes effect for the 2014 Rolex24. The participating team was the Conquest Endurance Nissan Morgan operation, and the car was driven by Martin Plowman.

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