DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. The team of Dan Wheldon http://ift.tt/1nNq4rX , Scott Dixon and Casey Mears survived the Rolex 24 to give car owner Chip Ganassi a victory in America’s most prestigious sports car endurance event.
Reigning Indy Racing League champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Wheldon, former IRL champ Dixon and NASCAR star Mears drove together for the first time and put together a solid effort on the way to victory Sunday. Saturday.
The winning Lexus Riley covered 734 laps and 2,613.04 miles on Daytona International Speedway’s 3.56 mile, 14 turn road circuit. Allmendinger and Justin Wilson and Oswaldo Negri and Mark Patterson.
“This race is so difficult, so hard to win,” said Dixon, who also drives for Ganassi in the IRL and will be teamed with team newcomer Wheldon this season. “I can hardly believe we won it. But Chip gives us a great team and great equipment and there are going to be more wins this year.”
Dixon was in the winning car at the end. He was hit by race officials with a drive through penalty for making unnecessary contact with the third place car on a pass shortly after his last pit stop.
The 45 mph trip through the pits with 18 minutes to go did allow Allmendinger to cut one lap off the lead, but it was still not close at the end.
“We got some quick changes during the night that the other guys couldn’t do,” Mears said. “We spent the least time in the pits and that’s what won us the race.”
It appeared for a while Saturday night that the battle would come down to the two Ganassi entries. They were 1 2, with the Lexus Riley driven by road racing specialists Scott Pruett, Max Papis and Luis Diaz close behind the leaders at the halfway point.
That team also came back from an early mechanical problem that put them four laps behind, but they wound up sidelined early Sunday morning when a broken oil line blew their engine.
It was an amazingly close competition for a 24 hour event, with four cars separated by just four laps at the end.
The Porsche Fabcar of Darren Law replica versace uk http://ift.tt/1tK8jgg , David Donohue son of the late Indy 500 winner Mark Donohue and Sascha Maassen was on its way to third place when a flat tire forced Law to drive nearly a full lap at slow speed. He was able to get the car to the pits for a tire change, but lost third place to the pole winning Porsche Crawford of Lucas Luhr replica breitling Navitimer World , Mike Rockenfeller and Patrick Long.
Third place was a great finish for a team that overcame two major problems. They came back from a broken axle and a nine lap deficit in the early going to charge back into the lead in the early morning darkness and build a three lap margin. But another broken axle in the 19th hour was the final blow.
Team owner Alex Job, whose teams have won their class at Daytona over the years but never won an overall victory, said, “We obviously had the fastest car in the race, but we didn’t have the luck. I’m proud that our guys kept coming back.”
That gave the lead back to the eventual winners, who came back themselves from a broken alternator belt that required a quick trip to the garage early Sunday morning and briefly left them three laps behind. >
Most big names in the star studded field were far behind or out of the race at the finish.
The Pontiac Crawford shared by retired NASCAR star Rusty Wallace, IRL sensation Danica Patrick and former Formula One drivers Allan McNish and Jan Lammers got as high as third in the 10th hour before an overheating problem and a blown head gasket retired their Pontiac Crawford.
Reigning Nextel Cup champion Tony Stewart, whose team was plagued by mechanical problems last time, fell out of contention early this time.
Paired with three time Rolex race winners Andy Wallace and Butch Leitzinger, Stewart’s team had a series of mechanical problems and wound up far off the pace in 30th, 141 laps behind the winners. The two time NASCAR champion took his scheduled driving stints throughout the race even though his ribs, injured in a sprint car crash two weeks ago, were throbbing.
“I wish they were teeth so I could have them pulled,” Stewart said, wincing as he watched the race from the pits. “The only time they don’t hurt is when I’m in the race car.
“It’s just too bad we had all those problems because this was a very fast car and Andy and Butch are great drivers. I think we would have had a shot at it.”
The Pontiac Riley of defending champions Max Angelelli, Wayne Taylor and Emmanuel Collard also challenged early, but left the race Saturday night when Collard was unable to avoid a spinning GT division car. Neither driver was injured, but the Riley was damaged too badly to continue.
The winner among the 400 horsepower GT entries was the Porsche GT3 Cup car driven by Randy Pobst, Michael Levitas Fake U-Boat Watches UK Unbelievably Cheap , Ian Baas and Spencer Pumpelly, finishing ninth overall.
