Here in the Valley of the Sun it's Wall-To-Wall Tom Brady Super Bowl-O-Rama, so news of this past weekend's Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona is only now reaching us.
Chip Ganassi’s Daytona Prototype team headed by Indy 500 winners Dario Franchitti and Juan Pablo Montoya finished first overall, giving big Chip his third straight victory in the event. Mr Judd joined Dan Wheldon (2005) as the only driver to win the Indianapolis 500, IndyCar Series championship and 24 At Daytona within a year. Dario also won a class event at the 12 Hours at Sebring a few weeks ago, so expect to see him testifying before Congress about performance enhancing steroids in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile a separate Ganassi entry team of Dan Wheldon, Scott Dixon and Alex Lloyd finished 44th overall, leading to speculation that Dan’s new teeth may require a separate aero package for 2008.
Also finishing well in the Prototype division was the Penske entry led by future teammates Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe. The duo partnered with N-Word driver Kurt Busch to achieve third place in Penske’s first entry in the event since 1973. With that kind of golden touch I hope The Captain doesn’t have an entry in my son’s pinewood derby this spring.
A good show was also put in by Ryan Hunter-Reay, who’s team finished in eight place. At one point he led the field for 10 laps, but you were probably sleeping at the time.
Hot on his heels was Indy Pro newcomer Raphael Matos who’s team won the GT class and finished ninth overall. Dude has won like eight championships in ten years of racing, so expect to be reading his name a lot this year.
Also of note, Ed Carpenter, Vitor Meira, A.J. Foyt IV piloted Tony George’s Vision Racing Daytona Prototype to a disappointing 25th overall and 12th in their class. Engine failure resulted in early retirement for these guys, but all things considered it’s probably the worst thing that happened for Tony George this week.
Buddy Rice’s team finished 27th overall, while Milka Duno's SAMAX team finished 61st. A punchline would be overkill.
Long Beach Preview
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Is it just me, or does it seem like we have gone months without an IndyCar
race? If you want to get technical, we have. The last points-paying race
was run...
8 hours ago
Jeff,
Nice wrapup on the Daytona 24. Some random thoughts from mrs. mmack and I, watching on Fox and SpeedTV.
1) Being proud of myself for recognizing him, I pointed out Matos on SpeedTV for the Mrs. Her response? "He's cute" >:^(
2) mrs. mmack happily told me the SpeedTV announcing team noted at one point that the winning TCGR entry was driven by "Scott Pruett, Juan Pablo Montoya, and two others". Nice slight to Turncoatti, but it stinks for Memo Rojas.
3) mrs. mmack also noted that in Victory Lane, Whine Pablum and Dario did not seem to be the "best of friends" while celebrating the victory. My response: Dario should ask Scott Pruett what it's like to be Whine Pablum's teammate in the N-word series. I for one cannot wait until Whine Pablum punts Turncoatti out of the way at Bristol or one of the road courses.
4) Helio! is still Helio, in the car or out of it. He was AMPED during one interview we saw with him after a driving stint.
5) Someone (perhaps the IRL) hire Derek Bell as an announcer NOW!
Mmack:
As far as the commentary went, there were some slip ups but then again its a 24 Hour race. For my money, it doesn't get better than Leigh Diffey and Bob Varsha anywhere in the world of motorsport.
/threadjack
matos is cute. hope we get to see lots of him next year.