TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Porsche Leads Rolex

ADVERTISEMENT

By MIKE HARRIS

The Associated Press

Published: January 25, 2009

DAYTONA BEACH - The pole-winning Porsche Riley Daytona Prototype driven by former Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice, David Donohue, Darren Law and Antonio Garcia was in front Saturday night after the first six hours of the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway.

In a seesaw battle with several other prototypes, Rice was at the wheel of the lead car as the first quarter of the race ended with a full-course caution brought out when a GT class car hit the wall and lost a wheel.

The first three hours of the event were cleaner than usual, with no caution flags on the 3.56-mile road circuit that snakes through the infield and uses about three-fourths of the 2 1/2 -mile NASCAR oval.

But, once Jep Thornton brought out the first caution with a crash in the car entered by actor Patrick Dempsey, there was more yellow than green, with a total of seven full-course cautions in the first six hours.

Dempsey's car got back into the race after a long stop for repairs, trailing the leaders by 81 laps.

Nine cars, all prototypes, were on the lead lap.

Second was one of two Chip Ganassi Racing entries hoping to give the team owner an unprecedented fourth straight Rolex victory.

The Lexus Riley driven by IndyCar champions and Indy 500 winners Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti and Indy Lights champion Alex Lloyd had the leaders in sight, while their teammates had fallen two laps behind after going back to the garage during one of the long caution periods to repair a front splitter. But they also took advantage of the situation to do some scheduled maintenance.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT