January Preview

One of the goals of theRACINGLINE.net is to attempt to make sportscar and endurance racing more accessible to motorsport fans who previously found it intimidating or even boring. “Whats on?” is a monthly series that will give you a brief overview of what to expect in the coming month. This January preview covers what news to expect on theRacingLine, but more importantly it covers what races are on, and how to go about watching them and keeping up with the news.

The “Whats on?” series is accompanied by a monthly roundup at the end of each month. The roundups will contain the major news headlines, any featured articles, and tRL TV links to the events that took place.

January is typically a rough month for motorsport fans, but luckily sportscar racing has some pretty interesting events scheduled.

Dubai 24 Hours

January Preview - Audi R8 GT3 at Dubai
Photo: Creventic

January 12-13

One of motorsports rising events is the Creventic Dubai 24 Hours of Dubai. Although the race is part of the Creventic organised 24H Series, the Dubai 24 can be viewed as a stand-alone event. The Dubai 24 marks the first GT3 event of the year, a class which attracts major manufacturer backing throughout the world. If you’re new to sportscar racing, you might be surprised at just how big the Dubai 24 Hours is.

We’ll be providing coverage of the event, including the first in a series of beginner’s guides, pre-race notes, an embedded live stream, and a final race report

Creventic will host a 24H Proto Series event the weekend before the 24 Hours of Dubai. We won’t be covering this event in detail, but will embed a live stream if possible. If interest in the 24H Proto Series grows, it might be one we cover more in the future.

Note that, unusually for motorsport, the Dubai 24 Hour is a Friday into Saturday event.

Asian Le Mans Series – Buriram

January Preview - AsLMS Start
Photo: AsLMS

January 13

The penultimate of the Asian Le Mans Series is a 6 Hour event at the Buriram circuit in Thailand. Unfortunately for fans, the race takes on the same day as the Dubai 24 Hours. Your choices are pick one of the events, watch the AsLMS 6 Hour race delayed, or be hardcore and go for dual screen or consecutive viewing. Whichever choice you make, you can see both races live on tRL TV.

IMSA – Rolex 24 at Daytona

January Preview - Rolex 24 at Daytona Green Flag
Photo: Cadillac

January 27-28

January leaves the best until last – the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. Sportscar racing in North America has finally recovered from one of those awful ‘splits’ that American motorsports seems so keen on and has really taken off. The Prototype class has factory backed entries from Cadillac, Nissan, Mazda and Acura all fighting for the biggest prize in American sports car racing.

Our coverage includes a beginner’s guide, pre-race notes, bihourly updates, a morning roundup, and race debrief. Staff will be available on Twitter, Facebook and comments sections for questions and chat. We are not able to embed the live stream on tRL TV due to IMSA broadcasting rights, but we will provide a link to the coverage. We will also post the race replay for tRL TV for anyone who wants to relive the action.

tRL TV Videos

New content will be posted to tRL TV 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) in addition to videos of the events we cover. The content on tRL TV is varied but often takes a theme of building up to an event that week. Expect to see a lot of historical videos of the Rolex 24 over the coming weeks.

What are you looking forward to the most in January? Let us know in the comments.

Engineering student, lover of all things technical and lifelong motorsport fan. Employed in the Oil & Gas Industry, developing Major Emergency Management simulations. Owner of the best beard on the site.