This weekend is the 'Roar' in Daytona, the lead up to the Rolex 24. Here are 5 things to watch

A lot of time and energy, plenty of worldwide cooperation and, yes, some sizable budgetary allowances, have gone into sports-car racing’s latest “next big thing,” and this weekend marks the next important step in the process.

New prototype machinery will be Topic A for the Friday-through-Sunday “Roar Before the Rolex 24” at Daytona International Speedway — a three-day test session culminating in Sunday afternoon’s qualifying, which will set the 61-car lineup for next weekend’s 24-hour endurance classic.

Here’s a handful of topics that will surely be addressed over the coming 72 hours at the World Center of Racing.

G, T and P: You'll see them a lot during Rolex 24

You will see those three letters a lot over the next 10 days. They stand for Grand Touring Prototype, the splashy, high-tech class of cars debuting this year in the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), North America’s premier sports-car body and an arm of NASCAR.

The cars fall into a category now known as LMDh — as in Le Mans and Daytona (and hybrid — more on that shortly), the top class of prototypes in Europe’s World Endurance Championship, which is IMSA’s overseas counterpart.

It’s a finish line of sorts for a three-year effort to balance the specs of the two racing entities, an effort that now allows both continents’ upper-rung prototypes to race in each series under one set of specs. Only the space-age machinery of Formula One is considered more sophisticated than these new GTP rides, which, per European mandates, incorporate hybrid power into our familiar, internally combusted horses.

The manufacturing players: Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche, with nine entries overall. Lamborghini joins the GTP party next year.

A fun side note for auto racing enthusiasts: Legendary team owners Roger Penske (Porsche) and Chip Ganassi (Cadillac) field teams in the new class. Each has been part of sports-car racing at various times, but this will be the first time they’ve competed against each other in something other than NASCAR or IndyCar.

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Rolex GTP cars look great but, you know …

The GTP teams have been putting the new cars through grueling test sessions, including 24-hour drills, to make sure they come out of the box ready to compete and complete — the Rolex 24, over Daytona’s 3.56-mile course featuring the famed 31-degree banking and horseshoe turns in the infield. It's a monumental challenge to face right out of the gate.

This weekend figures to give the nine cars a feel for competing in traffic, though it shouldn’t be nearly as hairy as it will be next weekend.

Mechanically, one ongoing challenge will focus on maxing out the hybrid power, which mixes with the traditional horsepower while also bleeding into brake technology. For onlookers without access to the telemetry, the noticeable change will come as the GTPs pull away from their pit boxes — from the drop of the jack until they leave the pit lane, the GTPs will be under electric power only.

There’s also a new Michelin tire this year, with added renewables in the recipe, and fewer of them. Tire allotment shrinks from 38 to 20, which means you’ll hear a lot about “double stinting” on sets of tires.

The rest of the Rolex, IMSA alphabet

There’s always a marquee class at the Rolex, and while GTP now fills that role, four other classes of race cars will fill out the 61-car field: GTD Pro (featuring all-professional driver lineups), GTD (a mix of pros and amateurs), LMP2 and LMP3.

While unlikely to compete for overall victory, all of those class entries are competing against their own in a season-long championship battle that begins with the Rolex 24.

Just as NASCAR has its feeder circuits (Xfinity, Trucks), IMSA has the Michelin Pilot Challenge and its two classes of cars: GS (Grand Sport, featuring Mustang, Porsche, McLaren, Aston Martin, and others), and TCR (Touring Car, featuring Honda Civic, Hyundai Elantra and others).

The Michelin Series cars get their share of test time this weekend, and begin the season next Friday at Daytona with a four-hour race.

A pair of actual races on Rolex test weekend

New to IMSA this year is the VP Challenge Series, which will add some real racing, complete with a pair of checkered flags, this weekend at Daytona.

Six weekends are on the inaugural season calendar for the series, which will run two 45-minute races at each of those six stops, beginning with Daytona races on Saturday (2:05 p.m.) and Sunday (12:20) of “Roar” weekend.

The VP races will deliver an interesting mix of cars: LMP3 prototypes and the type of Grand Sport cars featured in the Michelin Series.

Clear skies (fingers crossed) for Roar Before the Rolex 24

There’s just a small chance of showers this weekend, which means the teams won’t likely get a chance to traverse Daytona on rain tires. And that’s only a potentially bad thing because, as of now, the rain chances for race weekend are slightly increased. A few wet laps might prove helpful before race day.

Guess who’s not complaining — the thousands of Scouts expected this weekend in the ongoing tradition of Scout Days at Daytona. Two nights of tent camping and assorted activities, along with garage and FanZone access, has been part of the test weekend’s landscape since 2010.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Rolex 24 at Daytona 5 topics for test days, including Penske, Ganassi