Daytona 24 Prize Money

[Spike]

You would think that the upcoming Rolex Daytona 24, being the biggest race in the series, would have a generous purse.

You would be wrong. Perhaps Grand American should be renamed Just a few Grand American.

Third place pays a staggering $20,000.

Second, a generous $35,000

And for being the top finishing team:

A whopping $100,000.

Let's see now, take the drivers' portion (typically 40%) and divide that between the multiple guys behind the wheel leaves (after taxes)...

By the way, if you finish 26th or lower you get a T-shirt with Bill France's picture on the front.

Sounds like the Frances are running this thing out of the petty cash drawer.

[Jim Wilke]

Less than $400,000 total. Not much for Grand American.

[HardPoint]

And finishing dead last (or even a DNS) in last years Daytona 500 netted you $276,000 while the winner gets $1,490,000 with a total purse of $17+million.


Second place gets $35,000? does that even cover the tire and fuel bill for the entire time?

[irloyal]

Pays better than Saturday nite @ Perris.

[Spike]

Pays better than Saturday nite @ Perris.

Depends on what your doing there?

Seriously, though, the cost to run your car at one night at Perris is a whole lot less than what it costs to run a car (in any class) at the Daytona 24.

[Doc Austin]

Gee. If it's that bad I wonder if even 20 cars will show up.

[HardPoint]

Fun with numbers:

2nd place 24 hours of GA, $35,000
$35,000 / 24 hours = $1,458 per hour or $486 bucks per driver (3), per hour.

2nd place Daytona (4 hours), $1,106,130
$1,106,130 / 4 hours = $276,532 per hour, one driver. (or $46,800 per hour over 24 hours)

[Jakester]

One could say the point here is some of the other series oughta figure out why, despite the teeny tiny purse offered by the 24 heures du Daytona, some 80+ cars will be entered, a roughly 400% increase over the number expected in certain series.


you're welcome doc!

[Doc Austin]

One could say the point here is some of the other series oughta figure out why, despite the teeny tiny purse offered by the 24 heures du Daytona, some 80+ cars will be entered, a roughly 400% increase over the number expected in certain series.

you're welcome doc!

Thanks, Jakester.

Some of the reasons are more obvious than others, but stability is probably the biggest draw. Maybe they aren't making as much money, but the teams know the car will be good until 2013. That cuts down on the money flushing considerably. Teams know they are going to have a place to race. they know how they are going to get treated every time. Those are sure the kinds of conditions I liked racing under, though it never seemed to last even half as long as the Grand American has.

Another thing to consider is that there is no destructive split in sportscar racing. Oh, there's two series, but it's not a split in the same sense as the ow jihad.

The relationship between the Grand American and the ALMS is extremely cordial. Last year at the Rolex 24, Scott Atherton was holding press conferences at the DIS media center while the race was going on. No one is ever going to convince me there's any hostility in the supposed sportscar rift except between some of the fans, and not really that many of them.

Now, here's the rumor that was making the rounds at the Rolex 24 tests: Don Panoz and Jim France are going to hold a press conference at the Rolexs and endorse each other's series. Future schedules will be drawn up to avoid conflicts and when that's unavoidable the two will try to schedule double header events. Wouldn't that be cool?

Now, I don't know how much of this is going to come to pass, because, once again, this is just a rumor, but if that were to happen, I think the sportscar monster would be unstoppable.

In the ow world, however, everyone is backed into their respective corners and can't afford to give an inch, mostly out of pride, and mostly because no one can back down from 10 years of trash talk...........and we know where most of the trash talk came from.