DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The eyes of the motorsports world are used to being on the state of Alabama during the month of April.
This year, however, they're not focused solely on Talladega Superspeedway. The NASCAR race there is April 25. International race fans will be looking at another Alabama racing facility on April 10.
Just as Talladega is "old-school," with NASCAR names like Donnie, Bobby, Dale Jr., "Red" and Awesome Bill ringing true, race fans also are becoming familiar with Alabama's "new-school" drivers, like Memo (Rojas), Joao (Barbosa), Max (Angelelli) and Antonio (Garcia), who race at beautiful Barber Motorsports Park.
Those drivers, who compete in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype class, will be on hand at Barber, the newest road course in the series.
Located 20 miles from downtown Birmingham in the small-town backdrop of Leeds, the 2.3-mile, 17-turn track is situated among arguably the most scenic setting road course racing in the U.S. has to offer. Like the throng of fans who gather in the grandstands in the infield at Talladega, thousands of fans have camped and packed the hillsides on the grounds at Barber since it opened in 2003. GRAND-AM was the first series to have a public event take place there.
GRAND-AM at Barber and NASCAR Sprint Cup at Talladega present an interesting dichotomy of racing. Talladega is a 500-mile, bump-drafting, breath-holding, four-hour merry-go-round. The GRAND-AM event will have nose-to-tail racing through flowing turns and 80 feet of elevation with a time limit of two hours and 45 minutes.
As Chevy, Ford, Toyota and Dodge are staples in NASCAR, so too are Ford and Chevy in GRAND-AM. Additionally, fans at Barber will see Porsche and BMW models race. The Rolex Series - with its Daytona Prototype and GT class - will also be accompanied by its Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, a street stock division for high-performance and turbo and supercharged cars from both the U.S. and around the world.
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