24 Hours of Daytona

[Dennis O'Shea]

Congrats to Ford Racing and to Michael Shanks and his team for winning the race and Ford Racing Finished One,Two,Three Thats pretty cool

[SmokinStangs Mustang Forum]

Very cool...and a great showing for the Red, White & Blue!!!

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A.J. Allmendinger finally broke Michael Shank’s Rolex 24 at Daytona duck, taking victory for the Ohio based team by just five seconds at the end of the 50th edition of the famous American endurance race. Starworks Motorsport’s no.8 entry was second, the second Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian car completed a podium sweep for Ford powered Riley Daytona Prototypes.

Allmendinger tried to explain some of the importance of the victory after the race; “the last seven years this whole team, Mike Shank Racing, went through a lot to get to this point, and it’s really cool not only to win the race but to have two cars on the podium, to have really all the guys that have worked really hard. It’s the same group of guys that I’ve seen for the last seven years, Ozz can attest to that and Justin can attest to that, that it’s a small group of guys that Mike puts together, and they work their butts off, and it’s really cool this year to have them get a well-deserved victory and a second car on the podium. I feel very fortunate.”

NASCAR driver Allmendinger – sharing the no.60 Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian with Justin Wilson, Ozz Negri and John Pew – took the checkered flag after a nail-biting battle with Allan McNish in the Starworks Motorsport Riley-Ford. The pair came close to a disastrous end with just a few hours left when they touched at least twice going around the Daytona International Speedway banking.

Stepping out of the car soon after double Le Mans champion McNish was critical or his rival for the move, blaming him for the side-to-side contact. In truth it is almost impossible to apportion blame – should it be required – as both men appeared to converge on the same sport of Floridian real estate in turn two of the tri-oval superspeedway.

The moment was the climax of the lead battle, coming after McNish had first taken the lead going through traffic then robustly rebuffing an attack by Allmendinger around the outside of turn one, a move the Michael Shank driver was critical of in post race interviews. Allmendinger held the inside line for the bus stop chicane, McNish ceding the lead. The Starworks car was soon passed to Lucas Luhr who never appeared to have the pace necessary to challenge Allmendinger for the lead despite a number of full course caution periods in the final hours. Only Ryan Dalziel – the final part of the star driver trilogy that had powered the Starworks no.8 during the race – could make an impression on Allmendinger’s lead, and his contribution came too late to affect the ultimate result, though a final, last gasp caution period could have brought a very different result.

Inside the final hour a number of spinning GT class cars threatened to bring the race to a sprint finish – like the 2011 race – it was fact Allmendinger was fully aware of.

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50th Rolex 24 at Daytona Daytona Prototype results:

1. No.60 Michael Shank Racing – Allmendinger/Negri/Pew/Wilson
2. No.8 Starworks Motorsport – Dalziel/Luhr/McNish/Popow/Potolicchio
3. No.6 Michael Shank Racing – Goncalves/McDowell/Nasr/Yacaman
4. No.02 Chip Ganassi Racing – Dixon/Franchitti/McMurray/Montoya
5. No.5 Action Express Racing – Donahue/Fittipaldi/Law
6. No.01 Chip Ganassi Racing – Hand/Pruett/Rahal/Rojas
7. No.77 Doran Racing – Frisselle/Frisselle/Lowe/Tracy
8. No.90 Spirit of Daytona Racing – Garcia/Gavin/Magnussen/Westbrook
9. No.9 Action Express Racing – Barbosa/Borcheller/France/Papis
10. No.2 Starworks Motorsport – Andretti/Hunter-Reay/Mayer/Potolicchio/Potolicchio/Valiante

[SmokinStang]

The Rolex 24 at Daytona winning Riley-Ford powers around the banking (Photo Credit: Rolex/Stephan Cooper)



Shank's no.6 crew were almost certainly the surprise package of the event, taking third place overall

Full Story & source via: "the checkered flag" / thecheckeredflag.co/uk http://www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk/20...totype-review/