A new team, Toro Corse,
plans to enter two Lamborghini Gallardo racers in next
year's GrandAm Rolex Sports Car Series beginning with
the 24 Hours of Daytona in January; this will mark the
first time the Italian sports car brand will have
competed in the famous endurance race.
This will be the first
appearance of a Lamborghini in Rolex Series competition
and the famed 24 Hours of Daytona. Toro Corse is an
offshoot of the official Lamborghini dealerships in
Newport Beach, California, and Washington, D.C.
Team owners Jay Wilton
and Filippo Marchino entered the This year's 24 Hours of
Daytona with the WilMar Racing Ferrari F430, and are
currently in the process of building the two Gallardos
at the team's site in Costa Mesa in preparation for
winter testing.
In completing the
driver line up for the Daytona classic, Toro Corse is in
talks with several pro drivers. Currently well known
Roger Yasukawa, Christian Montanari, Nathan Swartzbaugh
and Bob Michaelian are in the process of final
negotiations with the team as lineup for the team's
first car, and are all expected to compete in Daytona.
The second car will
feature Wilton, Marchino, Jim Michaelian and two
additional drivers. Wilton, a California based real
estate developer and entrepreneur, is co-owner of
Lamborghini of Newport Beach and Washington, D.C. "We are changing road
racing forever," Wilton ambitiously said. "We are finally bringing
the last missing piece of the puzzle home - Lamborghini
at Daytona and in GrandAm. He also believes: "GrandAm
represents the top level of road racing in the U.S. and
in the world. Lamborghini in GrandAm seems meant to be."
Marchino, a California
based attorney, added: "The excitement and the drive we
all feel is exorbitant. It's been a long road, and it
will continue to be a long road, but the roar of the
Gallardo on the back straight at Daytona will be worth
it. We look forward to competing in the full 2011 Rolex
Series calendar, on the world's best tracks, with the
other greats of this sport including Mazda, Porsche,
Corvette and BMW." The team is currently undergoing the
stringent GrandAm homologation process, and expects to
be in engine testing homologation by mid-November.
