2007: Endurance Race or Sprint?

The coming of the Daytona Prototypes changed the face of American endurance racing. In recent years, the durability of GRAND-AM's flagship class changed the Rolex 24 from a twice-around-the-clock test of endurance to a sprint race.
"With the Daytona Prototype, reliability is no longer the biggest question," said Scott Pruett. "You know the cars can take the punishment of racing for 24 hours. Now, the biggest concern is getting through traffic."
With three hours remaining in the 2007 classic, three of the top Rolex Series teams seemed ready to get a head start on the rest of the season's three-hour events. A sprint race broke out among three teams, with plenty of nose to tail and side by side racing that led to the third-closest finish in the history of the event at the time.
Defending race winner Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates took on 2005-winning Wayne Taylor SunTrust Racing, while upstart SAMAX – today's Starworks Motorsport – was right in the battle for the victory.
For 2007, Ganassi opted to split his two lead drivers. Pruett teamed with Juan Pablo Montoya and young Mexican Salvador Duran in the No. 01 Lexus Riley, while new team driver Memo Rojas partnered with Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon in the No. 02. That move played a role in that year's DP championship, eliminating Rojas from the possibility of sharing the title with his teammate.
SunTrust's lineup featured four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon, who teamed with Taylor, Max Angelelli and Jan Magnussen in the SunTrust Pontiac Riley.
Milka Duno, a three-time Daytona Prototype winner in the SAMAX Riley she shared with Ryan Dalziel, Patrick Carpentier and Darren Manning, was making her bid to become the first woman to score an overall victory in a prototype-based international 24-hour endurance race.
As usual, attrition took its toll during the opening 21 hours. While many of the contenders fell by the wayside, the top three were running nose to tail with three hours remaining – and it stayed that way for most of the remainder of the event. While the action was fast and furious on the track, a pair of lightning-fast stops in the pits played a major role in determining the winner.
With two hours, 45 minutes remaining – the length of a typical Rolex Series race – Dalziel led Angelelli and Montoya as the top three cars ran nose to tail, separated by less than a second. Dalziel then pitted and turned the car over to Carpentier. That gave the lead to Angelelli, who was passed by Montoya on the following lap. After building the lead to 4.5 seconds prior to the next round of pit stops, Montoya turned the Ganassi car over to Pruett with one hour, 36 minutes remaining. Pruett retained the lead after exiting the pits.
"The pit stops really helped us," Pruett said. "We focus on our stops and are prepared for anything that can happen, and be ready to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Then, if anything was to happen, the team was ready. As far as preparation goes, it would be hard to beat the Ganassi team."
As the race neared the final hour, Carpentier maintained contact with Pruett before struggling in the chicane while trying to lap a Corvette. The slight gap gained by Pruett was all that the veteran needed to beat Carpentier by just over a minute – the third-closest finish in the history of the event at the time.
It was Ganassi's second-consecutive victory in the 24 Hours At Daytona, and second overall triumph for Pruett – who also won in 1994.
"This was huge," Ganassi said. "Huge. To, a lot of people, if you just finish a 24 hour race, it's like winning. To actually win one — let alone two — is incredibly gratifying."
Montoya had mixed feelings about his final shift, when he battled Dalziel and SunTrust Pontiac Riley driver Max Angelelli for the lead.
"We led most of 18 to 20 hours to that point, and then they started going at it pretty hard and made my life miserable," Montoya said. "We had to step up at the end. You want to get ahead, but at the same time, you don't want to be the guy who screws up and loses the race."
The SunTrust team struggled with brake problems late in the race to drop off the pace, finishing third to give Gordon a visit to the podium.
"I was not surprised that the race was so close near the end," Angelelli said. "In a way, I was expecting it. Is it going to happen again? Yes, I believe so, because this is GRAND-AM and the Rolex 24 At Daytona, and we are very close to each other, and we race each other 24 hours non-stop."
While Alex Gurney won the pole and led the opening three laps in the No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac/Riley, the team battled back from suspension damage and gearbox problems to finish 46th overall and 22nd in class. Gurney and Fogarty spent the rest of the season recovering from that deficit. They won seven races – including six of eight races down the stretch – and beat Pruett by two points for the DP title.