The team was founded in 1987 and originally raced a Volkswagen carrying Crown Royal Cask livery. Spirit of Daytona competed in every season of the Rolex Sports Car Series from its creation in early 2000, building a sustained presence in Daytona-based endurance competition that its name directly referenced.
During the Grand-Am years the team won sixteen races in the series, claiming Team Championships in 2000 and 2001 and a Drivers Championship in 2001. The team also won their class at the 2002 24 Hours of Daytona, one of the most prestigious single-event achievements in American prototype racing. Through this period the team's principal drivers included 2004 Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice and Antonio García, who had been part of the Brumos Porsche team that won the 2009 Rolex 24.
When Grand-Am merged with the American Le Mans Series to form the United SportsCar Championship in 2014, Spirit of Daytona entered the new era with Michael Valiante replacing Ricky Taylor, who left to join his father Wayne Taylor's team. Valiante and Richard Westbrook combined for three podiums and one victory — at the 6 Hours of the Glen — on their way to third in the championship.
In 2015, the pairing won for a second consecutive year at the 6 Hours of the Glen, added a victory at Laguna Seca, and finished second at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Valiante and Westbrook ended the season second in points, yet both drivers were released. The team moved to Marc Goossens and Scotsman Ryan Dalziel for 2016, operating under the Visit Florida Racing name — a title sponsorship that would carry the team through 2018.
Against the dominant Action Express Racing and Wayne Taylor Racing entries, the Visit Florida cars scored two podiums in 2016 at Daytona and Laguna Seca, with Goossens finishing fifth in the final standings.
For 2018, Spirit of Daytona returned to its original name and became the third IMSA team to campaign the Cadillac DPi-V.R in the Prototype class after Wayne Taylor Racing and Action Express Racing. The team hired Tristan Vautier and Matt McMurry as full-time drivers, with Eddie Cheever III for endurance rounds. The 2018 season proved disastrous. The No. 90 failed to finish the Rolex 24 due to an engine misfire. At Sebring, Vautier qualified on pole but crashed into the Turn 17 barriers in the eleventh hour while returning to the car after a stint change, destroying the tub beyond repair and forcing the team to miss the following rounds at Long Beach and Mid-Ohio.
The team returned at the Detroit Grand Prix and continued through the season, but a gearbox failure at Detroit and further incidents including a time-penalized result at Watkins Glen reduced their results. Financial difficulties began to impact operations, causing the team to skip Canadian Tire Motorsports Park and Road America. The team planned to return at Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta but ultimately did not participate.
Rumors in late 2019 suggested Spirit of Daytona might acquire a Mazda RT24-P from the factory Mazda team, but the project did not materialize. The team subsequently refocused its activities on building cars for the Mazda Global MX-5 Cup.
Spirit of Daytona Racing's record across two decades of Grand-Am competition — sixteen victories, three championships, and a class win at the Rolex 24 — positioned it among the series' consistent front-runners. The team's decline in the IMSA era, where underfunding prevented the Cadillac DPi program from finding competitive rhythm after a promising Sebring pole, illustrated the growing resource demands of the top-tier IMSA Prototype category compared to the Grand-Am era from which the team had emerged.