Rolex 24 at Daytona: Twenty-Four Hours to Open the Season

About the Rolex 24 at Daytona

The Rolex 24 at Daytona — the 24 Hours of Daytona under its sponsor’s name — is a twenty-four-hour endurance race held at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It takes place on the last weekend of January or the first of February, and it opens the sports car season.

The course is 3.56 miles of combined layout: most of the banked tri-oval plus an infield road section. Around sixty cars run across several classes, each team rotating between three and five drivers. Unlike Le Mans, the whole circuit is visible from the grandstands, which makes it the more watchable of the two great twenty-four-hour races.

What the Weekend Is Actually Like

The race starts in the early afternoon and the interesting part begins after dark, when the field thins and the banking is lit. Spectators come and go through the night; the paddock does not. Access to it is the difference between watching an endurance race and understanding one.

Florida in late January is the other reason to go. The weather is the best it gets, Palm Beach is three hours south and the weekend sits naturally inside a longer trip rather than standing alone.

The Classes, and What to Watch

Around sixty cars run at once, in classes that look alike from a distance and are not. The prototypes are the outright contenders, purpose-built and quickest by a wide margin. Beneath them run the production-based GT cars, closer to what the manufacturers sell, and slower by enough that traffic is the defining problem of the race rather than an inconvenience.

That mix is what makes Daytona worth watching rather than following. A prototype closing on a GT car through the infield at night, both drivers guessing, is the situation that decides twenty-four-hour races — and it happens every few minutes for a day.

Where to Start

• Decide how you want to spend the night — suite, paddock or grandstand are three different races
• Base yourself deliberately — Daytona Beach itself is functional; the interesting bases are further down the coast
• Arrive for the Thursday — qualifying and the paddock are calmer and more interesting than the race start
• Treat it as a Florida week — the race takes a day and a night; the state takes longer

One practical note that separates people who have done it from people who have not: the useful hours are not the ones on television. The start is congested, the middle of the afternoon is procession and everything that matters happens between midnight and dawn, when the temperature drops, the track changes and tired drivers make the decisions that settle it. Anyone planning to watch the whole race should sleep in the afternoon rather than the night.

Daytona Beyond the Race

The twenty-four hours opens Speedweeks, the stretch of the Florida calendar that ends with the Daytona 500 a few weeks later. For anyone who wants both, the two are close enough to build one trip around and far enough apart to need a plan.

The speedway is not the reason to be in Florida in late January, though. The weather is at its best, the Atlantic coast runs south towards Palm Beach and the golf is playable. A weekend that begins at the circuit and ends three hours down the coast is the version most of our members take.

Late January is also the quietest point of the Florida season. The courses are open and playable, the beaches are empty by the standards of any other month, and the drive south from the speedway takes an afternoon rather than a day. It is the part of the trip that justifies bringing people who have no interest at all in motor racing.

How We Help

• Suite and paddock access across the twenty-four hours
• A base on the Atlantic coast rather than in the speedway car park
• Tables and access through the weekend via our Fine Dining & Nightlife service
• Private aviation into Daytona Beach or Orlando, and ground transport that works at three in the morning
• The rest of the Florida week arranged around the race — ask your Business Concierge