It's a golden autumn morning in rural upstate New York. Backpacked kids wait by mailboxes for the school bus. I'm driving through pockets of valley mist to New York state's most famous racing circuit, to witness the shakedown testing of a race car so top-secret, it's still wrapped in camouflage.

After a 14-year absence, Cadillac is readying its return to endurance racing. The last time the American automaker competed in top-level prototype racing was 2002, when the ill-fated Northstar LMP finished 9th at Le Mans. Audi's dominant R8 prototype notched its third consecutive victory at the Circuit de la Sarthe that year.

Wayne Taylor and Max Angelelli were co-drivers in that final Cadillac attempt at Le Mans. They'll both be at the track today. Taylor, 60, has graduated from the driver's seat to run Wayne Taylor Racing, the principal team partner in Cadillac's new motorsports endeavor; Angelelli, 49, shares co-driving duties with Taylor's sons Ricky, 26, and Jordan, 24.

All four will be responsible for the imminent future of Cadillac endurance racing, in a program that tasks itself with making top-level sports car racing engaging and relatable again. I'm here to learn if Cadillac, and the series itself, can cut it.

Richard Prince

The camouflaged Caddy you see here is officially known as the DPi-V.R. It's built to IMSA's new Daytona Prototype international (DPi) formula, to compete in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship starting in 2017.

Think of DPi as an effort to make top-level prototype racing a little more interesting, and relatable, for casual race fans. The cars share a chassis with the LMP2 prototypes that compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, built by one of four approved constructors—Dallara, Onroak Automotive, ORECA or Riley/Multimatic.

But while FIA rules require all LMP2 teams to run identical engines and bodywork, IMSA's new class invites automakers to take those four models and distinguish their cars from the competition. The nose, sidepods, rear wheel arches and rear valance of a DPi car can be styled to echo the manufacturer's production offerings; the important aero bits, including the splitter, the floor, and the diffuser, remain identical to the WEC version of the chassis. Cadillac chose to base its DPi on the Dallara chassis.

"This race car is highly influenced by our sculptural sheer forms that are on the Cadillacs you see today," Dillon Blanski told me. He's the lead creative designer at Cadillac Studio, where the team took a break from styling production cars to shape this new race car. He points to the areas of the car where his team had stylistic leeway. "The headlights, the taillights, the sculptural surfacing that's on the body side. That one long feature line that runs from the front fender to the back fender. We were able to work the styling into the car to really optimize the aero."

Even in its black-and-white camouflage, you can start to make out some of the production-car styling hidden on the DPi-V.R. Check out the headlights: That long vertical "light blade" evokes the LED signature lighting on the current CTS and CT6. The taillights mimic what you'd see in a Caddy showroom; the wheels, usually farmed out to a major supplier on most endurance racers, directly echo the rollers on a brand-new CTS-V, right down to the embossed V logo on the spokes. On the finalized car, the wheels will even have the same black-and-machined finish as you'd find on a CTS-V.

The production-car tie-ins continue in the engine compartment. Behind the single-seat cockpit lurks a naturally-aspirated 6.2-liter V8, built by Earnhardt Childress Racing Engines of NASCAR fame, sharing displacement and piston layout (if little else) with the powerplant you can get in your Escalade or CTS-V.

Richard Prince

As soon as the Wayne Taylor Racing team fires up this new Cadillac prototype, I'm reminded of GM's other mid-engine endurance racer, the now-defunct Corvette Daytona Prototype. At idle in the garage, the Caddy's got that trademark 'Vette V8 lope, a percussion section made entirely of biceps. But when the DPi-V.R takes to the track and begins to build speed, the sound diverges from the familiar roar of the 5.5-liter Corvette Daytona Prototypes that preceded the DPi program. You can hear the displacement—the Cadillac is more bass-heavy, slightly less raw-edged than the old 'Vettes.

"It was very important, the sound of the car," says Angelelli, who shares in managing WTR with Taylor. "We spent time and effort making the car sound like a Cadillac. We did not want the car to sound just like a Corvette, obviously."

Nor does it drive like one. Angelelli and the Taylor brothers all spent the past several years racing Corvette Daytona Prototypes. Each is quick to point out how vastly the new DPi differs from the outgoing prototypes.

From left to right: Max Angelelli, Ricky Taylor, Jordan Taylor Richard Prince

"The predecessors had the feeling of a very powerful GT [car]," Angelelli said. "You brake, the nose goes down, you accelerate, the nose goes up. You turn, big roll. This car does not pitch, it does not roll. The attitude of this car is like a single-seater, almost like an Indy car."

"Being so stiff, it's a little bit numb [compared to the old DP]," Ricky Taylor tells me. "You used to get a lot of your signals from the DP in how it rolled and pitched. When you'd lock up the brakes you'd feel that pitch lessen a little. And this, it never pitches, so when you lock up the brakes you don't really have a good sensation for it. It recalibrates your mind."

Jordan Taylor says the car is so different, it's almost like re-learning how to race. "It's so aero-driven," he adds. "The old DP was more like a big, heavy sports car that you could slide around. This is way more nimble, wider, with more power."

Power output for the DPi-V.R won't be finalized until closer to the start of the 2017 season, determined by IMSA's Balance of Performance calculations. Expect the endurance Caddy to pump out around 600 horses, with a max engine speed of 7600 RPM, moving the 2050-lb. car through a sequential X-TRAC paddle-shift gearbox spinning the rear wheels. Yes, that means the 640-hp CTS-V you can buy at your local Caddy store will out-muscle the automaker's most cutting-edge racer.

Richard Prince

On this private day of testing at New York State's most famous circuit, the WTR team isn't out to set lap-record times. This is only the third time the completed car has driven shakedown miles under its own power, and the first time it's turned laps on a track that's part of the 2017 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship schedule.

With no other cars on track, and nobody willing to divulge lap or sector times to the lone journalist in attendance, I can't put the DPi-V.R's performance into context for you. But standing at the back-straight Bus Stop chicane and watching the thing knife its way through the apexes, I can tell you it looked, and sounded, mighty fast. Ricky and Jordan were both driving conservative lines, avoiding the splitter-threatening high curbs, and performing the myriad brake, tire, and traction control tests being ordered by the guys in the telemetry tent. Even under these businesslike conditions, it was undeniably exciting hearing the big V8-powered prototype thunder its way around the track.

Richard Prince

The question that remains is whether IMSA can provide that kind of excitement across the whole DPi class. The formula is encouraging. With race cars sharing some styling and maybe a little powerplant technology with an automaker's production cars, casual race fans might be more inclined to pay attention to sports car racing's prototypes. It's easier to root for a racing team whose car shares some resemblance with your own than it is to pick among the identical-looking, identically-powered European LMP2s that compete at Le Mans and in the WEC.

Angelelli is fiery on this point. "Look at the Audi P1. Tell me, where are the features you can recognize on a production car? Same for Porsche. Same for Toyota."

Richard Prince

That makes DPi the perfect opportunity for Cadillac, Mazda, Nissan, and whoever else shows up, to promote themselves at the top level of North American sports car racing. It's also a savvy use of a racing budget.

"Look at this like it's P1 Lite," Angelelli told me. "This is not nearly as expensive as a WEC P1 car. They have hundreds of millions in their budgets—three digit millions—and most of the time they race in front of nobody. This costs single-digit millions, and we'll race at Daytona, Sebring, Petit Le Mans, Long Beach. Big races."

Will those production-inspired touches be enough to lure new fans to the DPi fold? We'll find out at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, where the Cadillac DPi-V.R will make its racing debut.

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