By Brian Bielanski, Editor
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (RacingWire) – America's toughest endurance test, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, came down to a last lap shootout won by Ganassi Racing's Scott Pruett over his teammate Scott Dixon. The top four finishers were separated by less than 3.7 seconds after 24 hours.
Pruett and his co-drivers Memo Rojas, Graham Rahal and Joey Hand overcame a gear stack change and a rear camber change that put them two laps down early in the race. The battled back to win the team's third Rolex 24.
The win complete's the "Ganassi Slam". Owner Chip Ganassi's teams won the Daytona 500, Indy 500, Brickyard 400 and now the Rolex 24 in the same 12 months.
“I'm telling you,” said Ganassi, “I don't drive the cars, I don't change the tires, I don't work on the engines. There are lots of people, lots of great competitors that it takes to make up a team, and I'm just the guy that gets to stand up here and talk about it.”
Ganassi's No. 02 team car of Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, Juan Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurray finished 2nd.
Defending Rolex 24 champs, the No.9 Action Express Porsche finished 3rd.
The first few hours of the 49th running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona were more like the final few hours. The pace was fast and furious as drivers acted like it was a sprint race rather than an endurace test.
Eventually, darkness fell and drivers settled in to a pace more appropriate for early stages of the Rolex 24. That didn't stop problems from ruining the race for a few of the favorites.
The race's pole-sitter, the Flying Lizzard No. 45 Porsche Riley, lost 19 laps early in the race to make repairs after going off track to avoid another incident.
The GAINSCO team of Alex Gurney, Jon Fogarty and five-time Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson had their winning hopes quashed in the race's fifth hour, when the team had to go behind the wall to fix brake problems. The team returned to the action eight laps down and their chances were further hurt by contact with Juan Pablo Montoya causing them to lose even more laps. The team lumbered back to a 15th place finish.
The race was marred by a nearly three hour caution period as fog settled in over the Speedway. The race returned to green just after 8 a.m. The fog was the only weather problem during what was otherwise a fantastic weekend of weather.
The No. 5 Action Express team looked poised to vye for a repeat when Buddy Rice was leading the race at the restart after the fog caution. The team's chance of repeating came to an end after David Donohue spun his No. 5 Porsche with five and a half hours left, putting them several laps down. Darren Law brought the car home to a 9th place finish.
The No. 67 TRG Porsche piloted by Andy Lally, Spencer Pumpelly, Wolf Henzler, Brendan Gaughan, and Steven Bertheau, made it's way from starting last in the field to win the GT class crown. They started last after Andy Lally's pole winning time was disallowed for a technical infraction.
The team ran the last 17 hours without a clutch, making the win even more special.
“Once the clutch went,” said Pumpelly. “It kind of changed our mentality... ...we survived probably the worst thing that we could imagine getting thrown at us early in the race, and that's a clutch out, and we were just going to push on and see what happens. And that did change a lot. It was more of a grind and more of a wrestle match and not so much of a delicate operation.”
The No. 48 Porsche of Miller Barrett racing spent much of the day on top of the GT leader board and held the class lead for a time before settling in for a 2nd place finish in class. The No.48 car was driven by Bryce Miller, Bryan Sellers, Tim Sugden, and Rob Bell.
Just before 1 a.m., Dempsey Racing took the Rolex 24 lead for the first time the team's short history. It was also actor/driver Patrick Dempsey's first time leading the Rolex 24. Dempsey Racing's chance to win fizzled when co-driver Tom Long spun wth six hours left. Long rejoined the hunt two laps down and the team worked it's way back to a third-place podium finish. Dempsey and Long shared driving duties with Joe Foster and Charles Espenlaub.
Dempsey joked after the race that his success has him thinking of a career change. “I'm retiring from Grey's Anatomy as of today,” said Dempsey. “I'll be racing full-time from here on in. There's a headline for you.(Laughter).”
