Angelelli, Taylor, Collard Win at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. February 6, 2005; Mike Harris writing for the AP reported that a Pontiac-powered Riley prototype co-driven by sports car aces Max Angelelli, Wayne Taylor and Emmanuel Collard coasted to victory Sunday in the Rolex 24 sports car endurance race.

It wasn't supposed to be so easy in a race that saw a record 44 lead changes among eight cars and was up for grabs for 22 of the 24 hours.

NASCAR's Tony Stewart, who lost the lead and the race a year ago when his suspension failed with less than 25 minutes remaining, had another heartbreak this time when the Pontiac Crawford he shared with former race winners Andy Wallace and Jan Lammers had a gearbox failure with two hours and three minutes to go.

"It just popped out of second gear," said Wallace, a three-time Daytona 24 Hours winner. "There was no warning."

It was sweet for the winners, though. A year ago, they lost the lead because of a fuel pressure problem, giving the win to a Pontiac Doran co-driven by Terry Borcheller, Christian Fittipaldi, Andy Pilgrim and Forest Barber.

Sunday's two front-running teams had been among the leaders from the noon start of the twice-around-the-clock race on Saturday and had been separated by less than 40 seconds when Wallace rolled into the pits with black smoke spewing from beneath his Daytona Prototype entry.

After Wallace's car went out, though, the closest competitor was the Lexus Doran of Didier Theys, Fabrizio Gollin and Matteo Bobbi, which was 11 laps behind.

Angelelli drove the last two hours, nursing that big lead.

"That was the toughest part of the race, that last two hours," the Italian driver said. "You go all out for 22 hours and then have to be very careful in traffic and not do anything stupid the last two hours."

The winners covered 710 laps, a total of 2,527.6 miles on the 3.56-mile road course that includes about three-quarters of the 2 1/2-mile NASCAR oval and a winding infield section. They averaged more than 105 mph.

It was the second Daytona 24 Hours win for South African native Taylor and first for Angelelli and Frenchman Collard.

After the duel for the lead was defused, the battle for second place grew intense, with four cars winding up less than three laps apart.

The Pontiac Crawford of Jimmie Johnson — another of the nine NASCAR regulars in the all-star lineup — and former Daytona winners Butch Leitzinger and Elliott Forbes-Robinson wound up second, 11 laps behind despite a long pit stop to fix an engine problem in the middle of the night.

"I figured at that time, maybe we could get a top 10," Leitzinger said. "I forgot just how Daytona is, how cruel it is."

After a 25-minute visit to the garage to put in a new gearbox, the Stewart-Lammers-Wallace entry managed to come back and grab third place, just ahead of the Lexus Riley of Stefan Johansson, Cort Wagner and NASCAR's Jamie McMurray and on the same lap as Johnson's second-place car.

Another lap behind were former race champion Theys, Gollin and Bobbi, who were slowed by engine problems and faded to fifth. Another of the Chip Ganassi Racing Lexus Rileys, piloted by IRL stars Scott Dixon and Darren Manning and NASCAR's Casey Mears, was sixth.

Scott Pruett, co-winner of the 2004 Rolex Series championship with Max Papis, started from the pole for the second straight year in the third Ganassi Lexus Riley, but had early problems and never got back into contention. Along with Daytona rookies Luis Diaz and Ryan Briscoe, the team finished seventh, 22 laps behind the winners.

Five-time Daytona champion Hurley Haywood escaped injury during the night when a brake failure sent him spinning into another car in a spectacular crash. Nic Jonsson was also uninjured Sunday morning when his prototype went up in flames. He managed to get it stopped on the grass in front of the pits and roll out of the fiery cockpit.

The Grand American Road Racing Association introduced its Daytona Prototype division in 2003 with only six entries in the race at Daytona International Speedway. Last year, there were 16 of the sleek prototypes, and the number jumped to 29 this year.

Prototypes took the top nine spots in the two-class race, with the Porsche GT3 co-driven by Shawn Price, Pierre Ehrat, Wolf Henzler and Dominik Farnbacher taking the top spot. That car — the 24th GT class winner and the 59th overall class winner for Porsche in the 43-year-old event — wound up 46 laps behind the overall winners.

It was an unusually competitive endurance race, with four cars still on the lead lap and seven within two laps halfway through the event. Eventually, though, attrition took a heavy toll on the 62-car field.

Last year's champions, with Champ Car star Paul Tracy replacing Pilgrim, went out during the night with mechanical problems after challenging early.

Actor Paul Newman shared a Ford Crawford, but his team could not finish the race. Teammates Michael Brockman and Champ Car stars Sebastien Bourdais and Cristiano da Matta had several off-course excursions as well as engine problems. At 80, Newman was the oldest driver in the field by far.