Rolex24 At Daytona After Six Hours
by Joe Jennings
1/30/2010

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Daytona Beach, Fla. - Six hours into the Rolex24 at Daytona, the Crown Royal BMW team of Scott Tucker, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Christophe Bouchut and Lucas Luhr were the race leaders, covering 168 laps around the twisting 3.56-mile road course.

The race has been run in soggy conditions as the precipitation rolled in some 90 minutes prior to the start of the 24-hour event. Due to drenching rain, the first six laps were run under the caution flag with the green coming out on the seventh go-around.

Fast qualifier Max Angelelli grabbed the lead at the outset but Scott Pruett took command a lap later with Ozz Negri taking over two laps after that.

An hour into the race, the rain subsided but the track was very wet, which caused three full-course caution periods.

As the race rolled along, the Chip Ganassi Racing BMW Riley driven by Indianapolis champions Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti and Juan Pablo Montoya along with NASCAR ace Jamie McMurray took command, leading more than half the laps run.

Said Franchitti after his driving stint, "The track is tricky due to the wet conditions and the traffic is about as mad as normal. Chip (Ganassi) has given us a car to win."

At the quarter mark, Luhr led Montoya, Ryan Dalziel, A. J. Allmendinger, Scott Tucker and Butch Leitzinger.

NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson pushed his car into sixth place at one point, but he reminded everyone that he was being cautious, so not to duplicate his off-course crash during practice. "I wasn't going to wreck again on my watch," he said. "The car is very competitive, and it is a lot of fun to drive."

The GAINSCO car did have a telemetry problem that took a while to unravel, but it was done late in the evening.

The SunTrust Racing car that started from the pole but dropped five laps off the pace after Pedro Lamy slapped the wall while exiting the pits on cold tires.





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