With that in mind, times during the Thursday free practice were quite encouraging, with the Synergy racing Doran BMW posting 1:50.527 for the first session, to stand 11th overall. The time ducked under the 1:50 mark during the second session, but so did many of the other teams, so 1:49.740 was only good enough for fifteenth. On Friday the team ran only one of the sessions, to allow the crew to carry on some major maintenance work. There was nighttime practice, however, staged so that all the drivers could get gain some experience of running the Daytona banking in darkness. The squad posted a best of 1:53.299.

With a whole season ahead of him with Synergy, Burt Frisselle was offered the opportunity to qualify the car. “It has something to do with them accumulating points for the championship,” explained Tommy. Unfortunately, it didn’t go so well for the twenty-three year-old, ending the session 20th on the grid. with a time of 1:50.334. “He's so much faster than that,” said a sympathetic Erdos. “He’s such a nice guy, and so is his brother Brian, but I think maybe the pressure got on top of him.” The brothers come from a motor racing background, and have grown up with fast cars and high expectations.