Crowds onlooking as team's prepare for Sunday's final ROAR practice session. ( Photo: Jared Bokanoski)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Roar Before the 24 at Daytona International Speedway is IMSA’s season opening testing session held the week before the season opening Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Teams competing in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, Michelin Pilot Challenge and VP Sportscar Challenge series were all in attendance for the first on-track weekend of the year. With all three series taking to the track in front of what has been a year-over-year growing crowd at Daytona International Speedway.
What is at it’s core merely an open testing weekend has become an event that draws in massive crowds which has become yet another brick in the wall for the near rocket-powered growth of IMSA in the years following the North American sportscar racing boom that in large part began in 2023 with the introduction of the GTP platform.
The Roar presents a lucrative opportunity for both long-time sportscar racing diehards but also perhaps the new or casual fan to come in and take in the sites and sounds of the IMSA world.
Open garage access for anyone with a ticket, event admission being included with the purchase of a Rolex 24 pass (making it one of the most consumer friendly ticket deals in the world of motorsports) the yearly tradition of “Scout Days” and the simple overall increase in fan interest have created the recipe for another year that saw the parking lots in Daytona International Speedway’s infield reach capacity before on-track activity had even concluded its first half of action for the day.
The parking lots however were merely one piece of the crowd as garages, merchandise stores and the Hard Rock Bet FanZone all saw fans pouring in for the weekend.
Fans lining the garage area to see the teams and drivers roll in and out of the garage areas before sessions, lining the infield road course portions of the circuit with cameras hoping to catch their favorite cars, or getting glimpses of the cars at full speed on the fan deck view of the frontstretch were not only treated to seven practice sessions for the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship and five sessions for the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge, but a pair of IMSA VP Sportscar Challenge races on Saturday and Sunday.
Oscar Tunjo and Westin Workman would sweep the weekend in the series in the LMP3 and GSX classes respectively, with the second race of the weekend being an eventful race in wet conditions.
One of IMSA’s biggest triumphs of the weekend however didn’t necessarily come directly from the on-track action at the Roar Before the 24, however.
Fans have been clamoring for years to see live coverage of the Roar Before the 24 at Daytona and this year IMSA surprised everyone and delivered. Starting during Saturday night’s night practice IMSA surprise dropped that they had set up live coverage over on their YouTube channel of the two hour practice session… and the fans turned out in droves. Since Saturday night the stream has amassed 204,000 views and an unwavering amount of commendation on social media sites across the web.
This stream was followed up by IMSA doubling down and surprising fans again on Sunday morning with yet another stream that currently sits at 145,000 views in its own right.
The Saturday stream, which saw NBC’s Matt Yocum and IMSA Radio’s Ryan Myerhn bringing commentary to upwards of 12,000 live viewers was described by IMSA’s head of brand, digital strategy and communications as the start of YouTube centric “opportunities” when he spoke with Sportscar365 about the stream.
IMSA has been seeing a surge in growth on YouTube with events in their VP Sportscar Challenge and Michelin Pilot Challenge events being streamed worldwide across the platform.
The series’ YouTube channel that concluded the 2025 season at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta by crossing the million subscriber threshold has seen another 300,000 subscriber burst leading into Daytona.
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