Riley Mk XI Southard Motorsports Prototype, 2008 Mk XI Southard Motorsports Prototype Pictures, News, Reviews, and Info | Conceptcarz.com - Pictures, Wallpaper, Pricing, Information, History

About Southard Motorsports

Southard Motorsports, based in Powell , Ohio , is owned by Steve and Martha Southard. The program made its professional debut in 2003 and is one of only two teams to have participated in every Grand American Rolex Daytona Prototype Sports Car Series race since the inaugural season's final event. Since that time, Southard Motorsports has won the inaugural Jim Truman Driver ' s Award, scored two podium finishes ( Long Beach and Phoenix in 2006) and closed the 2007 season with a fourth-place at Miller Motorsports Park . Multiple-time Grand-Am sanctioned race winner Shane Lewis (Jupiter, Fla. ) returns to the driving effort as he has since 2004 while NASCAR veteran Bill Lester ( Atlanta , Ga. ) joins the operation for the first time in 2008.

Steve Southard began racing in 1972 and was competing professionally on the SCCA National level and in IMSA competition by 1976. He has personally raced in the Rolex 24 At Daytona fives times and the 12 Hours of Sebring five times. Southard made his Grand-Am debut in 2002 in the GT class and raced in the Daytona Prototype as recently as 2004. Southard Motorsports and Steve Southard are well known for their successful campaign of the Coca-Cola Porsche 935 and 962 in historic and vintage racing.

The familiar red, white and blue livery of Southard Motorsports adorns a Riley chassis. Southard is one of only two teams to be powered by the Lexus V8 in Daytona Prototypes.

Source - Southard Motorsports

Rain Pummels Southard Motorsports Homecoming, No. 3 Lexus-Riley Finishes 13th

Southard Motorsports, based in nearby Powell, Ohio, entered Saturday's EMCO Gears Classic presented by Key Bank eager to put on a good show for their hometown crowd. However, the weather had different plans for the No. 3 Southard Motorsports Lexus-Riley and drivers Bill Lester (Atlanta, Ga.) and Shane Lewis (Jupiter, Fla.) in the two hour and 45-minute timed event at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Round seven of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Daytona Prototype season left the Steve and Martha Southard- owned team wet and frustrated with a 13th-place finish at the conclusion of the rain-soaked and caution- riddled race.

Lewis started the race 10th on the grid. Even as the green flag waved across the Daytona Prototype (DP) field raindrops were beginning to fall on portions of the 2.258-mile, 13-turn mile road course. The first of eight cautions came on lap eight as a number of DPs came together under the increasing showers. Despite cars adding to the mess both in front of and behind him, Lewis successfully plotted his way through the melee to continue on as the rain pounded harder. Lewis would hold the red, white and blue Lexus V8- powered Riley chassis near the leaders until lap 22 when the car joined the long list of cars of course with his first spin of the day. Lewis rejoined the race but was quickly overtaken by the leaders as he brought the car back up to speed. Now a lap down, Southard Motorsports had its work cut out for it the remainder of the race.

One hour and 30 minutes into the race the clouds cleared briefly and the track began to dry before a second wave of storms hit the famous Ohio facility. With the rain again increasing, Lewis held the 12th position, one lap behind, until spinning a second time into the gravel with 50 minutes remaining. Once extracted from the gravel trap, Lewis pitted and Lester took over driving chores. Now two laps down and facing a wet course, Lester spun the Southard car ten minutes into his stint. Again, the car was undamaged and the NASCAR veteran continued through to the checkered flag. Fitting for such a day, the event finished under caution with the Southard Motorsports effort 25th overall, two laps down. In total, the rain led to 35 laps under caution and only one hour, nine minutes and 44 seconds under green flag conditions.

Despite the bitter weather conditions and disappointing result, the weekend was a success on another level for Southard Motorsports. Hosting over 100 guests of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, Southard Motorsports helped to further raise awareness of the Ohio-based charity's goal of finding homes for foster children throughout North America.

Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is a non- profit 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the adoptions of the more than 150,000 children in North America's foster care systems ready to be adopted. Created by Wendy's founder Dave Thomas who was adopted as a child, the Foundation leads programs such as Wendy's Wonderful Kids, which puts adoption recruiters in all 50 states and Canada to find permanent, loving families for children in the foster care system, and Adoption-Friendly Workplace, which encourages employers to offer adoption benefits to their employees. The Foundation also works with adoption advocates and officials to streamline the adoption process and make adoption more affordable for families. As the only Foundation dedicated exclusively to foster care adoption, it is driven by its founder's simple value: Do what's best for the child. To learn more about the Foundation's work, please visit
www.DaveThomasFoundationforAdoption.org.

Southard Motorsports will have little time to contemplate the Mid-Ohio weekend as the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series is quickly back on track. The team travels back to the site of the season-opening Rolex 24 in Daytona Beach, Fla. for the Brumos 250 At Daytona on July 3. The event, traditionally known as the Paul Revere 250, will be held immediately following NASCAR Sprint Cup Series qualifying at Daytona International Speedway. Southard Motorsports had a strong showing in January at the Rolex 24 before a mechanical problem led to a dramatic accident which ended their day just short of the 24 hour distance.

Quotes
Steve Southard Owner: 'It rained and rained and we had a car that was almost un-drivable in the rain. A lot of credit goes to Shane and Bill for bringing it home without a scratch on it. Now we have to figure out why it became un-drivable in the wet conditions.'

Source - Southard Motorsports

Grand-Am Daytona Prototypes

Established in 1999, the Grand American Road Racing Association was brought about to return some sense of stability to major league sports car road racing in the states. The Grand-Am is regarded worldwide as the most competitive road racing organizations. 2008 marks the ninth season of competition for the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series.

Intentions were announced in 1999 by the all-new Grand American Road Racing Association to adopt a format that was similar to the one used in the SRRC, centering around the 24 Hours of Daytona. This new series was an alternative option to the earlier IMSA GT Championship which had since been replaced by the American Le Mans Series in 1999.

The premiere series run by the Grand American Road Racing Association, the Rolex Sports Car Series is a North American-based sports car series founded in 2000 to replace the unsuccessful U.S. Road Racing Championship. Located in Daytona Beach, Florida, the Grand-Am is located on the same campus as NASCAR, Daytona International Speedway, and ISC. Grand-Am offers a completely different product that features extremely competitive sports car racing on both historic and street circuits and in major market speedways throughout the U.S.

Facing many tough and unpredictable times during the 90's, sports car racing in North America went through a lot. Uncontrolled technology and all of the costs that came with it were the majority of the problems. Fortunately Grand-Am addressed these problems head on and mandated affordable rules with a ‘firm commitment to a level playing field'.

Two classes of Sports Racing Prototypes would be run with the new series, these classes would be identical to the rules used in the new FIA Sportscar Championship in Europe. Grand Touring-style vehicles would be classified in three classes, GTO; for larger production-based race cars, GTU; for smaller production-based race cars, and AGT; for American tube frame vehicles. For 2001, GTO and GTU would be renamed GTS and GT to better match the classes that were used by the very similar American Le Mans Series.

In 2002 Rolex took over as series sponsor. Through the years, the series has run with a mixture of classes of Sports Racing Prototypes and Grand Touring-style vehicles.

Daytona Prototypes were introduced in 2003, their custom prototype chassis that was named after their signature event, the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The series went through a very radical intense change in 2005 at Laguna Seca2003 as Daytona Prototypes were introduced for the first time with the intention to replace both of the Sports Racing Prototype classes. The American GT class was deleted as cars were now being placed into the very similar GTS class.

The GT class was ranked on the top tier as the faster GTS was deleted in 2004 in order to make a larger gap in between the Daytona Prototypes and GT cars. The GT class was now joined by the Super Grand Sport class that was moved up from the Grand Am Cup series. Today these two classes are DP and GT in the Rolex Sports Car Series.

GT and DP races had to be split at Grand-Am into shorter tracks, in places where it wasn't possible to put 50 cars on the track at one time. The GT car races would occur on Saturdays, while the DP car races were held on Sundays. This split format allowed drivers to run in both races. The races were the same distance, and it was just as if the races were held at the same time.

When the two races are combined, the two classes use a motorcycle racing-style ‘wave-start'. The DP cars take the green flag first, and 20-30 seconds later the GT cars followed. The organizers who set this up hoped for a much safer start by having the two classes starting separately.

In 2008 the Grand Am began its ninth season of competition. Rolex is one of the world's most recognizable names in history, long known for its quality and reliability. Rolex Watch USA has been the title sponsor of Grand-Am's premier series for six years. Rolex is now synonymous with legendary events worldwide. The Rolex Series Daytona Prototype category has established itself as the most competitive professional road racing championship in America, and has attracted the attention of both superstar drivers and universally recognized teams worldwide.

The Rolex Series GT class has done the same for high-performance, production-based sports car racing that the Daytona Prototype class has done to redefine prototype sports car racing.

The Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series was presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 in 2008. Every year Rolex Series drivers compete for the highly prestigious, specially engaged steel and gold Daytona Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Rolex watch.

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The Grand American Road Racing Association was established in 1999 to return stability to major league sports car road racing in North America. As the organization begins its ninth season of competition in 2008, Grand-Am is universally regarded as one of the world's most competitive road racing organizations.

Grand-Am is located in Daytona Beach, Fla. on the same corporate campus that is also home to NASCAR, International Speedway Corporation (ISC) and Daytona International Speedway, but operates as its own stand-alone corporation with a group of independent investors and its own board of advisors. Among the company's investors are several of the key people behind NASCAR's success, but Grand-Am offers an entirely different product that features extremely competitive sports car racing on historic road and street circuits and in major market speedways throughout North America.

Sports car racing in North America endured tough and uncertain times for the majority of the 1990s, a far cry from the successful IMSA series of the 1970s and '80s. As is often the case in motor racing, sports car racing's decline during this period could basically be traced to uncontrolled technology and its related costs. Grand-Am has addressed this with sensible and affordable rules that are competition driven but grounded in common sense and stability with a firm commitment to a level playing field.

Grand-Am's top-tier Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask #16--which begins its ninth season of competition in 2008--has established itself as the most competitive professional road racing championship in North America. The Rolex Series Daytona Prototype category has attracted the attention of superstar drivers and universally-recognized teams through its extremely raceable and relatively affordable format, and has revolutionized sports car racing with plentiful battles at the front of the field and close finishes in virtually every race.

Grand-Am races at some of the world's most prestigious venues--Daytona, Montreal, Mexico City and Watkins Glen--and has taken the role of a top annual attraction at some of the newest venues in the industry such as Miller Motorsports Park, Barber Motorsports Park and Virginia International Raceway. Grand-Am is also making a standard out of the newest form of circuit racing--'Stadium Road Racing'--on the road course layouts at tracks like Homestead-Miami Speedway.

2008 Riley Mk XI Southard Motorsports Prototype
Year	2008
Make	Riley
Model	Mk XI Southard Motorsports Prototype
Engine Location	Rear
Drive Type	Rear Wheel
Body / Chassis	Hybrid Steel-Aluminum Chassis
Weight	2275 lbs \| 1031.9 kg
Combined MPG	0.00

Engine
Engine Builder	Lexus
Engine Configuration	V
Cylinders	8
Aspiration/Induction	Normal
Displacement	4.30 L \| 262.4 cu in. \| 4300.7 cc.
Horsepower	500.00 HP (368 KW)
HP to Weight Ratio	4.6 LB / HP (Vehicles with similar ratio)
HP / Liter	116.3 BHP / Liter
Fuel Feed	Fuel Injected
	Vehicles with similar horsepower and weight

Dimensions
Standard Payload	0.00
Fuel Capacity	24.0 Gal
Seating Capacity	1
Doors	1
Exterior
Length	177.501 in \| 4508.5 mm.
Width	78.501 in \| 1993.9 mm.
Height	43.101 in \| 1094.8 mm.
Wheelbase	110.001 in \| 2794 mm.
Front Track	31.501 in \| 800.1 mm.
Rear Track	33.751 in \| 857.3 mm.
	Vehicles with similar dimensions

Suspension
Suspension	Twin wishbones and pushrods

Steering
	Rack and Pinion with Power Assist

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2008 Riley Mk XI Southard Motorsports Prototype