55th Daytona 24 Hours

The IMSA series is contested with four different categories of car namely Prototype, PC, GTLM & GTD and these four categories accounted for a full grid of 55 cars. Xtrac lead the field in the design and manufacture of sportscar gearboxes and supplied more than any other single manufacturer in this event, with almost half of the cars entered using an Xtrac gearbox across all four categories.

Supporting such a large contingent of transmissions in a 24 hour race is a huge task but one which Xtrac’s North American facilities in Indianapolis and Mooresville take in their stride. Regular support crew members Paul Barton, David Martz and Jon Laski were joined for this event by three staff members from Xtrac’s UK facility; such is the importance of this event.

Reflecting on the event Xtrac’s Senior Commercial Engineering Manager praised the support team in attendance “Our products ran extremely well throughout the whole event but it was great to see the commitment from the whole team at any hour of the race, with them carrying out routine maintenance during the practice sessions, and being ready to help our customer’s when they needed it.”

Xtrac’s P1159 gearbox was launched in 2014 to suit the latest LMP1-1 and LMP1-H regulations and the ‘F’ variant of this incredibly reliable unit has been developed specifically to suit the new ACO / IMSA LMP2 / Prototype regulations. To date over 50 off P1159 gearboxes have been supplied running in a multitude of different chassis.

The next event in the IMSA WeatherTech series is the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring on 18th March, with the World Endurance Championship (WEC) for the similar LMP2 and GTE cars starting on 14th April with the 6 hours of Silverstone.