Spirit of Daytona Racing to Return for Detroit IMSA Contest
After a brutal crash at Sebring that sidelined the team for two races, Spirit of Daytona will make a comeback at Belle Isle.
The No. 90 Cadillac DPi-V.R of Spirit of Daytona Racing will enter competition at Detroit for the first time since March after a collision with Tristan Vautier behind the wheel forced the team to sit out the last two rounds of IMSA action. After watching the Long Beach and Mid-Ohio races from home, the Florida-based crew is eager to re-enter the hunt as it was competitive during its last outing which also saw the crew win pole for the 12 Hours of Sebring.
SDR recently completed testing at the Watkins Glen circuit in New York where it prepared for the upcoming June 2 race.
“It was tough to step back and miss our first IMSA races in a long time, and as racers, we hated to do it,” said Team Owner Troy Flis. “But after looking at the situation, it was absolutely the best decision we could have made. We’ve been kind of on the back foot ever since moving to the new Prototype configuration (in 2017) working with different platforms and manufactures and sometimes things coming together just at the last minute. So we were often just reacting to what was coming at us instead of being able to plan and look further down the road.”
The team, which switched over to a Cadillac prototype for the 2018 season, was gutted after crashing out of Sebring, a race which it battled at the front of for most of its operating hours. Drivers Matt McMurry and the aforementioned Vautier are both reportedly ready for their return to competition next weekend, which provides a hometown race of sorts for the Cadillac and General Motors family.
Tristan (Vautier) and Matt (McMurry) both have raced that track, and we have had some success there in the past so hopefully, we can use that weekend to build on what we learned at the test to be ready for the Glen,” concluded Flis. “We’ve all turned the page from Sebring and I’m really pumped about what we’ve been able to accomplish in the last couple of months as a group, and now it is time to get back out there and race.”
SDR also plans on competing at the famed Six Hours of the Glen competition in Upstate N.Y. on June 28.
