Daytona Exploring Possible National Karting Event at Roar

Photo: DaytonaBeach.com

Daytona International Speedway is evaluating a potential nationally sanctioned karting event to join the Roar Before the Rolex 24 event by as early as 2027 according to track president Frank Kelleher.

While already host to the annual Daytona KartWeek in late December, organized by the World Karting Association, a new event, which would exclusively utilize the speedway’s short paved kart/autocross track in the infield of Turn 3, would run concurrently to track activity on the 3.56-mile oval/road course that includes IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and Michelin Pilot Challenge testing, as well as the opening rounds of VP Racing SportsCar Challenge.

“I look at it as, ‘We’re just getting started with the Roar’,” Kelleher told Sportscar365.

“We are flirting with some karting sanctioning bodies and we’re trying to map out, whether it’s WKA or USPKS, can we create a national karting event that takes place on our sprint course? Can we have an aspirational invite-only [event] where we’d bring the best of the best kart racers from all over the world and they’re coming to Daytona during IMSA’s Roar Before the Rolex 24?

Kelleher said the karting event could also encompass an educational STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) component that would help link young racers to the IMSA paddock.

“In addition to this elite testing that is going on on the big track, can we create a STEM program where we have Porsche, Ferrari, Mazda, Ford and Lexus and they’re involved as well, and this karting event that’s taking place in the infield?” he asked.

“I’m a former kart racer and a garage mechanic person. There are families and racers in karting that, as much as they want to take the green flag of the Rolex 24, I know where their minds are, it’s Formula 1.

“This [would be] an opportunity to expose that if you don’t make it as the athlete putting the helmet on hearing ‘Start Your Engines’ there’s still an opportunity to be involved in motorsports.

“It might be working on the factory Cadillac team. It might be working on the factory Porsche team in IMSA and here’s an opportunity to open up your eyes that it is attainable.

“You and your family could be at the ‘World’s Center of Racing’ competing while IMSA is going on.”

One of the current events ongoing during the Roar event is the annual ‘Scouts Weekend’ that sees up to 5,000 scouts camp in the infield, currently located in NASCAR Turns 3 and 4, which Kelleher indicated would have to be partially re-located if the infield karting track would be in use.

“I look at this as that weekend, whether it’s the Roar or the Rolex 24 weekend, we need to continue to think long-term,” he said.

“It doesn’t need to all happen overnight, and we don’t need to push the scouts out; we need to maintain and protect what the scouts are doing and grow it.

“But we also need to look into ‘How do we make this event weekend something that it’s not [currently]?’

Kelleher said there are plans for a feasibility study to be made during January’s Roar event, which could pave the way to a karting event the following year.

“From an operational standpoint, we are looking at our infield map and are trying to explore if we were to move scouts, if we were to bring additive things to the Roar weekend, how could it all fit together?” he asked.

“We’ll use 2026, instead of just looking at photos and maps, we’re going to have a dedicated team of, ‘Alright, let’s hop in this golf cart and drive around.’

“There may be a few karting sanctioning bodies in town during 2026 to look around and see what it could be for maybe in 2027 and beyond.”

F1 Movie “A Huge Gift” to Daytona International Speedway, IMSA

Kelleher believes that the summer blockbuster ‘F1’ movie, which was partially filmed during the 2023 Rolex 24, has been a ‘huge lift and a huge gift’ to DIS as well as IMSA.

The Apple-produced film, starring Brad Pitt, begins at the Rolex 24 with the fictional Chip Hart Racing team, where Pitt’s character Sonny Hayes takes victory in a Porsche 911 GT3 R prior to his return to Formula 1

“I think it is so special that Lewis Hamilton, as an executive producer, gave direction to [Jerry] Bruckheimer and to Brad Pitt that the way to authentically win the crowd over is that this driver needs to start out racing domestically in an endurance race,” said Kelleher.

“That’s how there’s going to be believability that, ‘OK, this person is a wheelman and I could believe now that he could make it in F1’ and there’s only one place to do that, and that’s at Daytona International Speedway during the Rolex 24.

“In the movie space, the first 10-15 minutes of any movie, if it doesn’t hook you in, you’re just going to tune out.

“The fact that the movie production, even though it’s F1, they hooked the audience in by the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at the Rolex 24 at Daytona… And it’s Brad Pitt, one of the biggest names in all of cinema.

“We definitely have seen that uptick in interest, in excitement, whether it be through our ticket sales or just in casual conversations.

“To David Pettit [IMSA’s SVP of marketing and business operations] and others behind the scenes, that really made all of that come to life, I think of my ops team in Daytona who worked with the movie production team. It was a huge effort and a huge lift and it was a huge gift for IMSA, for Daytona, the ‘World’s Center of Racing’.

“That is a movie that will live forever. Think about when you get settled in your Delta [Airlines] seat and that movie is an option.

“The first 15 minutes of people checking out, ‘Do I want to watch the movie or not’, they’re going to be watching Daytona, they’re going to be watching the Rolex 24, which is really special.”

Source: Sports Car 365