The Rolex 24 has been Full Course Yellow for a long period of time before. One recent was 2023, when the race was put under FCY for 2 hours, 15 minutes due to debris and multiple incidents on the racing surface. In 2022, the weather played a role in that 3-hour FCY. But neither could hold a candle to what was about to occur in 2026.
Just before 7 pm, the fog started rolling in over the massive Daytona International Speedway, and it got soupy. Visibility went from over 15 miles earlier in the afternoon to roughly a couple of hundred feet. Worst part? It just kept getting worse. I couldn’t see the grandstands from Lake Loyd at a quarter past midnight. About a half hour later, I stood looking over Lake Loyd, watching the cars cruising down the backstretch. I stood recording with my phone for a brief moment, and boom, caution at 12:45 am.
FUll Course History
Visibility had gotten so bad that race control had to throw the Full Course Yellow. The teams were told to expect a lengthy one. The field cruised under caution for so long that race control even had to swap out the pace car. It wasn’t over, and IMSA was about to make history.
Unlike NASCAR, IMSA sports car racing and endurance racing do not get to red-flag a race and just pause where you are. A red flag would do nothing more than stop the cars on track, but the clock keeps ticking. There would be no Chris Buescher Pocono win-type deal here.
The 2026 Rolex 24 at Daytona ran, uninterrupted by any sort of racing, under a Full Course Yellow for 6 hours, 33 minutes, and 25 seconds. A new record for the longest FCY in Rolex 24 history. It lasted so long that even NASCAR Cup Series rookie and former Rolex Champion Connor Zilisch ran his entire stint under that yellow. I even called it a night right at about 5 am. I walked out to my car to take a few-hour-long nap.
Sunrise hit us at Daytona at 7:17 am, and despite thick fog still over the track, we went back green. After 120 laps… 427.2 miles at about 60 mph, we went back racing. 55 of the 60 starting cars still rolling!
