Daytona 24 Hour 2008 Update

Clock just passed the 12 hour mark at the moment, so here is a quick run down.

Leader is the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing car of Juan Montoya, Scott Pruett, Dario Franchitti and Memo Rojas.

Second is the Michael Shank Racing car of Burt Frisselle, AJ Allmendinger, James andPew.

Other noteables are:

#99 Gainsco is currently 5th, could be leading after the pit stops shake out.
#9 Penske-Tayler Racing is 5th
#59 Brumos Porsche is 6th
#60, the second Michael Shank Racing car (with Justin Wilson) is 9th
#10, SunTurst Racing is 10th
#02 Ganassi Racing is 14th, 17 laps down after an off

Both Cheever Racing DPs stopped on the same lap.

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Hour 19 is almost done

Full Course Caution flies for major debris in NASCAR3 from a Porsche blowing a tyre.

Current leader is #23 Alex Job Racing Crawford Porsche with Joey Hand winning
Second is the Brumos #59
3rd is #6 Michael shank Racing car, which needs major work done to the front end after an off
4th if the #01 Ganassi Franchitti/Montoya/Pruett car, which will be leading when the stops shake out.

Previosu leader #99 has changed a gearbox after it shredded 4th gear

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Wouldn't put it past Montoya winning it again!

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Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld

GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.

Hour 22 almost over.

Leader is the #01 Ganassi Riley of Montoya/Franchitti/Rojas/Pruett. They have a 4 lap lead over the #99 car, which had a suspension failure. Previous leader, #59 Brumos Porsche had the suspension collapse whilst leading, exiting NASCAR4 and had a large impact with the SAFER barrier.

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Just an update

01 Chip Ganassi: Montoya - Pruett - Franchitti - Memo Rojas

win the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona

Congrats gents

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"When you begin in this sport you are given a chequebook. Every time you have a big one you must write a check to the angels. The trick is to finish your career before you empty the chequebook".

tbh what a lineup, how could they loose ?

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

Don't know anything about Rojas, but Franchitti & Montoya are class acts, and Pruett's been one of the fastest guys in sportscars Stateside for a while now - and with Ganassi running the show, I agree chet. They really couldn't lose

Of course they could lose! Ganassi were running the old Riley chassis, whilst the #99, who are the reigning champions were running the new car, which is considerably faster than the Ganassi one. The #23 Crawford Porsche is by far the fastest combination on the circuit at the moment too.

The #99s drivers were Alex Gurney, John Fogarty, Jimmie Johnson and Jimmy Vasser. Hardly a poor line up there! 3rd place car was Kurt Busch, Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe too. Actually, look at the driver list. It's an all-star race of CART, IRL, NASCAR and Sportscars. Franchitti, Montoya, Pruett, Gurney, Fogarty, Johnson, Vasser, Busch, Castoneves, Briscoe, Zonta, Angelelli, Taylor, Rahal, Wilson, Gavin, van de Poele, O Connell, Lally, Miller, Westbrook, Allmendinger, Magnussen, Borcheller, France, Haywood, Barbosa, Andretti, Carpenter, Foyta, Meira, George, Donohue, Law, Papis, Bergmeister, Long, Wallace, Doornbos, Huisman, Gidley, Dixon, Wheldon, Luhr, McNish, Rockenfeller, Said.

Forget IROC. Forget the RoC. Daytona 24 is far more impressive.

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But IIRC, the new Riley chassis is far less reliable than the old one, which is why Chip stayed with the old one. Plus Chip has far more money than Gainsco. And the Porsche may be faster, but the driver line-up was no-where near that of Ganassi's car.

But yeah, the line-up has been mightily impressive for the last few years now, and while the Grand-Am cars may not be as technologically advanced - or fun to watch individually IMHO - as their Le Mans counerparts, their relative cheapness and lack of manufacturer teams means the racing is far closer than either LMES or ALMS can provide at the moment

Newe Riley chassis has largly the same innards as the old one. Its just a substantial aerodynamic update. The problems came from old issues of the car. For example the #99s gearbox issues surfaced for teams in 2007 too. And the Michael Shank Racing cars were unlucky, with Justin hitting a bump and causing the rear suspension to collapse. Complete luck on the Brumos Porsche failing too, and that car was one of the fastest. Considerably faster than the Ganassi car too.

The new chassis are weird. The Lola isn't ready yet, and Krohn destroyed it anyway. The Dallara isn't ready yet. The new Fabcar isn't ready yet. And the new Riley is just an update of the old one.

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I'd heard that the new aero updates were working some of the mechanics harder due to some transfer of aerodynamic grip to mechanical grip or something, but I might be mistaken. And did I read somewhere that Eddie Cheever's now building Fabcar's new chassis?

Yeah Cheevers bought the rights to the Fabcars and renamed them to Coyote. But it's still the Fabcar chassis. Funnily enough, both Cheever cars failed within a lap of each other. Which is great for me, the mans a prick who threw me out of his garage :P

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