What a pleasure it was to watch Mike Shank’s team run a faultless race to win the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
It was the first major win for Shank’s burgeoning team and the first Daytona 24 Hour win in 13 years for Ford. It was also a great win for drivers Justin Wilson, AJ Allmendinger, Oswaldo Negri and John Pew, all of whom shared the delight of scoring the biggest victories of their careers.
Shank is a former driver who won the Formula Atlantic C2 Championship in 1996 before starting his team, first in Atlantic, then moving into the Grand-Am’s Daytona Prototype category in 2004. Shank’s cars have always been powered by Ford engines and they’ve been able to win three Grand-Am races over the last eight years and have challenged unsuccessfully to win at Daytona.
But this year Shank was ready with two of the new generation of Riley Mk XXVI-Fords. Both of his cars were in the hunt all the way and as the long night wore on Shank’s lead car, driven by Wilson/Allmendinger/Negri/Pew, established itself in front and over the race’s last half they were the men to beat. The strongest challenge came from Chip Ganassi’s lead Riley-BMW driven by last year’s winners Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas/Graham Rahal/Joey Hand, but Shank’s Ford-powered car was quicker on the banking and Pruett and his team-mates admitted it was going to be tough to beat Shank.
In the middle of the night Ganassi’s second car driven by Juan-Pablo Montoya/Dario Franchitti/Scott Dixon/Jamie McMurray fell out of contention because of a broken gear lever. Other leading lights to hit trouble included all four of the new Corvette Daytona Prototypes. Most notable of the Corvettes was Wayne Taylor’s car driven by Max Angelelli/Ryan Briscoe/Ricky Taylor and Bob Stalling’s Gainsco car driven by Alex Gurney/Jon Fogarty/Memo Gidley. Taylor’s car suffered a valve train failure after only a few hours while the Gainsco Corvette ran into trouble with a failed water pump and then a crash, which required a change of nose.
By the time the sun came up on Sunday morning only three cars remained on the lead lap – Shank’s and Ganassi’s number one cars and Starworks Motorsports’ lead Riley-Ford driven by Ryan Dalziel/Alan McNish/Lucas Luhr/Enzo Potolicchio/Alex Popow. The Starworks car started from pole and stayed on the lead lap all the way, eventually claiming second place when Pruett/Rojas/Rahal/Hand hit gearbox trouble. A long stop was required to change the Ganassi car’s gear stack, which lost four laps and dropped Pruett and his team-mates to sixth at the finish.
Meanwhile Allmendinger/Wilson/Negri/Pew ran the distance without any trouble or mistakes to score the biggest win of all their careers. Allmendinger brought the winning car home, driving the last three hours without relief and scoring his first win in five years, since departing Champ Car for NASCAR at the end of 2007. “It’s such a prestigious race,” Allmendinger said. “It’s one of those races you want on your résumé. It’s just amazing. I’m going to cherish it. This is the biggest win I’ve ever been a part of and those last three hours were some of most fun I’ve ever had in a race car.”
It was also a great accomplishment for Wilson who was driving his first race since breaking his back in an IndyCar accident at Mid-Ohio last August. “This is a tough race,” Justin said. “It was flat-out all the way. We gave it everything, every lap. That’s the way it has to be in order to be competitive and win this race. I’m really pleased for Mike and Ford, and the whole team.”
The story of the race was the utter fail of GM and Chevrolet with the “Corvette” prototypes. Major engine failures simply aren’t acceptable in modern sports car racing.
Ganassi team’s spin on his gearbox failure was “no one’s fault”, but Pruett clearly throttled on while the car was still on jacks and the sudden grip then broke the cluster when the car was dropped.
The race was compelling, and had a close finish, but leave it to American TV to declare this race, “the World Championship of Sports Cars”. Hardly.
Sometimes, I fear that the only reason why this race still exists is because of timing and the fact that there is literally nothing else going on in racing that weekend.
It’s the NASCARization of endurance racing, again. A few full course yellow flags for reasons that can’t be seen except for, oh wait, “debris”, that’s it. Everyone pits, gets the finish driver in, gas, tires, and it’s the MOST EXCITING FINISH IN HISTORY!!!
They slam into each without damage like, I don’t know, stock cars, and continue on.like nothing happened.
At least this generation of DP cars is a bit less gag reflex ugly as all of them up to this point.
The only redeeming feature of Daytona is that it’s the start of the season.
One of the best 24 hours in years
I have to agree with the first two posts here. This event has diminished quite a bit in the interest factor since such days as the 1996 event when Max Papis was doing qualifying laps to try and get a big win for a Ferrari vehicle in an endurance event after many many years. Now THAT was quite a finish, even if “my guy” didn’t get the win.
I don’t mean for my post about the state of interest in the event (for me) to take anything away from the efforts put in by all the participants. Regardless of how the France family has done a bit of a “Tony George” to this event, I know that the folks busting tail in the pits and in the cars are still giving it their all.
I agree with Don about the looks of the cars. The new ‘Corvette’ is a big improvement on previous DP cars. Nice to see underdogs win both classes too. But to compare this race to LeMans is like comparing Valencia to Monaco….there’s no comparison!!!
Also, don’t forget these guys have had precious little time to figure out these cars, as it’s the season’s first race. That matters a lot when you’re learning about your new car…