Montoya, Ganassi lead early in 24 Hours of Daytona
January 30, 2010
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (AP)—Chip Ganassi Racing was on its way to reclaimingthe 24 Hours of Daytona title, with Juan Pablo Montoya leading more than sixhours into the sports car endurance race on Saturday.
Montoya powered past Lucas Luhr on the outside of the slippery track after arestart on the 169th lap. He deftly guided the No. 02 BMW Riley with clean andcrisp moves on Daytona International Speedway’s infield twists that had beenpelted with rain early, causing cautions and skid outs.
Montoya’s teammates and fellow Indianapolis 500 champions Dario Franchittiand Scott Dixon held the top spot for a combined 91 laps when he regained thetop spot. They considered the early lead a big accomplishment under theconditions.
“The track is quite tricky, especially getting up to speed with coldtires,” Franchitti said. “And then once you do get up to speed, you have to bereally careful because it’s only one lane out there in a lot of parts. But thecar seems pretty quick. I’m quite happy right now.”
There were nine other cars on the lead lap.
Alex Gurney was in second when he handed off to teammate and four-timeNASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson for Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing after aboutthree hours. Johnson kept them in contention, and Jimmy Vasser pushed them inthe lead for three laps before pitting. Vasser was in seventh after six hours.
Even being so close, so early was a big move for the No. 99 car, whichstarted last among the Daytona Prototypes after Johnson crashed the car inpractice and the team missed qualifying. The telemetry wasn’t working for mostof Johnson’s ride—it was later fixed—so he drove conservatively under thelights on the damp track.
“I wasn’t going to wreck the car on my watch,” Johnson said. “I’ve donethat once this week.”
But it was Ganassi making all the noise again.
The organization had three straight wins in the prestigious endurance raceuntil finishing second last year in the closest race in the event’s history.Ganassi drivers weren’t wasting any time coming back this year.
Dixon broke away from the pack with some tight zigging and zagging on thenarrow infield road course. He avoided spinouts—unlike some drivers—when thetrack was still soaked early, and he and his teammates didn’t lose ground on thestraightaways to other Daytona Prototypes as Ganassi did a year ago.
“In my opinion it’s a better car than we had last year, and probably betterthan when we won it in ’08,” Franchitti said. “It’s more competitive.”
Other drivers tested the wet track too early.
There were 10 cautions, including at the start with rain still falling,before the green flag was waved five laps into the race. Ricardo Zonta held abrief lead until he hit a turn too fast, braked too hard trying to recover andspun out into the tire wall like so many others in the back.
“The first three laps were extremely difficult. It was very hard to put thepower down and have any kind of hope to keep the grip,” said actor PatrickDempsey, who had the No. 40 car in the pack of the other GTs. “It was certainlygreat television and fun to watch.”
But there still was plenty of time to catch up.
That alone was enough for the 44-car field—that included 29 of the slowerGT class cars—to keep hope alive. The 3.5-mile (5.7-kilometer) road coursethat encompasses about three-fourths of the NASCAR oval was starting to dry,then a quick shower sprinkled the track again about five hours into the race.
The flat infield course still had a few puddles and was perhaps the mostdifficult to navigate, especially with Daytona Prototypes trying to weave aroundthe GT cars.
“On some of those restarts,” Gurney said, “guys weren’t starting like itwas 24 hours.”
Comments
Got something to say?
