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" The relationship between the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA United SportsCar Championship is certainly a strange one. Unlike traditional &amp;quot;Splits&amp;quot;, where two series of a similar heritage compete in the same market with the hopes of attracting\u00A0a lot of the same people, there&amp;#039;s very little overlap between the locations, strengths and weaknesses of the two sports car racing series. They share just one class directly, the all-pro GT class for factories called either GTE-Pro or GTLM depending on which side of the paddock one is on, and though they run the same cars under other sets of rules in other classes, the two series have yet to really step on the other&amp;#039;s toes when it comes to attracting teams and drivers. A large part of that has to do with the simple fact that, while the WEC claims to be a World Championship, it is ultimately an evolution of Europe&amp;#039;s historic sports car racing background, whereas IMSA is proudly representative of decades of American sports car racing heritace. Because the WEC is built around Le Mans, ultimately\u00A0the only thing that matters to factories, it gets not only every factory LMP1 program but the entire LMP1 category, and because IMSA&amp;#039;s series is built around the skeleton of the former American Le Mans Series that found new strength from their GT field after the Prototype\u00A0factories left for newly-formed series in Europe at the end of the last decade, that series is headlined by an open GT class that doesn&amp;#039;t actually compete for overall wins. Because the two have their biggest money in completely different types of cars (Though there are factory prototypes in IMSA&amp;#039;s top class and a small but stable group of factory GT cars in the WEC&amp;#039;s GTE-Pro category) and because the two are based on opposite ends of the globe, there&amp;#039;s little public animosity\u00A0between the two series born of the same early 2000s sports car racing landscape dominated by an American Le Mans Series at full health. That&amp;#039;s what makes a day like tomorrow, where both series will run races on the same day, on the same track, but not at the same time, possible. The Lone Star Le Mans isn&amp;#039;t exactly a classic like Sebring, Daytona or Le Mans, but it&amp;#039;s a highlight of both series schedules, a time for two fanbases (Which, it&amp;#039;s important to note, overlap much\u00A0more than the series garage areas do)\u00A0to meet with the racing equivalent of a childhood best friend they had thought they&amp;#039;d lost contact with\u00A0for a yearly get together. Along with being a race weekend, this is a reunion. The IMSA race is first, and\u00A0the relatively short two hour and forty minute event\u00A0will be the first of the year lead to the green by series stalwarts Scott Pruett and Joey Hand, driving Chip Ganassi&amp;#039;s Ford-Riley Prototype in what it&amp;#039;s expected to be the program&amp;#039;s final year before retooling to run Ford GTs in the offseason. The track seems to be well-balanced for both Daytona Prototype-based and LMP2-based cars, with Michael Shank Racing&amp;#039;s\u00A0Ligier of the latter pedigree joining front row with a lap just 7/100ths of a second slower than the time set by the session leader. Porsche&amp;#039;s Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet paced GTLM, taking\u00A0what seems like Porsche Motorsport North America&amp;#039;s nineteenth straight class pole. In the Pro-Am categories,\u00A0RSR Racing&amp;#039;s #11 of Chris Cumming and Bruno Junqueira will start from pole in LMP Challenge, while Christopher Haase and Dion von Moltke will lead the GTD field in Paul Miller Racing&amp;#039;s Audi R8 LMS. The six hour, day-into-night WEC race has a decidedly different feel, and as it&amp;#039;s far more of a sprint than a marathon, qualifying takes on less of an importance. Still, Porsche has to be proud to continue a perfect streak in 2015\u00A0qualifying sessions, as the #18 Porsche 919 of Romain Dumas/Marc Lieb/Neel Jani starts first again. If Juan Pablo Montoya does drive one of their cars next year,\u00A0he&amp;#039;ll have a lot to live up to. The splits between the top three LMP1 factories have become pretty familiar at this point of the season, with both Audis a second and a half behind both Porsches, and the pair of Toyota ever-so-slightly out of reach of the leaders at three seconds back, still\u00A0enough for\u00A0fifth and sixth on the overall grid. The three factories remain miles ahead of the few remianing private LMP1 entries, as the #12 Rebellion leading that group sits a full seven and a half seconds back of the pace-setting\u00A0Porsche. Today&amp;#039;s round of the seemingly unending\u00A0battle between Aston Martin Racing, AF Corse and Porsche Team Manthey in GTE-Pro\u00A0goes to the Aston Martins, thanks to a good run for the #99 car of Alex MacDowall/Fernando Rees/Richie Stanaway. All seven cars in the class are separated by just over one second, continuing a grand tradition of close qualifying sessions for GT2-based machinery. KCMG&amp;#039;s Oreca 05 has been fast since Le Mans, and it isn&amp;#039;t letting up, winning another class pole in LMP2 on Friday. GTE-Am&amp;#039;s session was a little more interesting, however, with the #77 Proton Racing Porsche headlined by\u00A0celebrated actor of film and television Marco Seefried taking pole in its class. Both races are to be aired live in their entirety\u00A0on Fox Sports 2, and if you&amp;#039;re looking for something to watch during the hour and a half\u00A0in between, the network will be airing professional fishing during the downtime. 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<http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a26752/different-worlds-converge-at-the-lone-star-le-mans/>