Halfway through the 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 at Daytona, Allan McNish held a ten-second lead over AJ Allmendinger who was twenty seconds ahead of Graham Rahal who was seven seconds ahead of David Donahue, with Gustavo Yacaman 23 seconds behind.
McNish, in the pole-sitting #8 Starworks Riley-Ford Daytona prototype, had finally secured a lead over Allemndinger in the #60 Shank Racing Riley-Ford, after the two had swapped the lead and battled through traffic for twenty laps.
McNish’s ability to pick his way through traffic proved to be decisive; Allmendinger could pass the Scot coming off the banking but McNish could slice through traffic, using slower cars to get by Allmendinger, then using it to pull away. McNish was able to stay ahead and still get two extra laps out of a tank of gas; the Scot’s experience in endurance racing was making the difference.
Graham Rahal, driving the car and with the same team with which he won the 2011 Rolex, was keeping to David Donahue in the #5 Action Express Corvette Coyote. Donahue’s was the only one of the new Corvette Daytona Prototypes not to have serious issues.
The #90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette Coyote lost several laps with a broken differential; the #99 Gainsco had a punctured radiator, which was repaired, then headed to the garage after ten hours, and is now 68 laps down.
The second Ganassi car, the #02, lost five laps when its shifter broke on lap 344.
In GT, the pole-sitting #59 Brumos Porsche led the #44 Magnus Porsche by over a minute, which was 20 seconds ahead of last year’s class winner, the #67 TRG Porsche. Fourth in class was the first non-Porsche the #57 Stevenson Camaro, which lost nearly two minutes to a penalty for passing the pace car.
The racing has been exciting throughout, but none of the battling through the night will really matter in the final hour, when the race will be decided.
