After 24 hours of racing, it was amazing to see five cars on the lead lap with three of them within 7 seconds. And it would have been closer yet if the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi car hadn’t suffered a blown tire with six minutes to go.
The No. 01 CGR Caddy was closing on the leading Wayne Taylor Racing Acura in the waning laps when the right rear tire blew, putting them into the pits and out of contention. The No. 10 Acura went on to take the win, the third Rolex 24 overall win in a row for Taylor’s organization.
Endurance ace Filipe Albuquerque took the last stint from a tiring Ricky Taylor for the final hour. A pair of Indy 500 champions, Alexander Rossi and Helio Castroneves, who raced the Acura DPi for Penske Racing a year ago, rounded out the team’s drivers.
Seven time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson’s team finished second, with Indy 500 champ Simon Pagenaud, ex-F1 pilot Kamui Kobayashi, and endurance racer Mike Rockenfeller co-driving. The top five cars, all DPi machines, covered 807 laps or 3,074.67 miles over 24 hours for an average winning speed of 128.11 mph.
The first LMP-2 finisher was seventh overall, 10 laps behind the leaders. Corvette Racing’s C8.R cars dominated the GTLM category, finishing first and second in class and 17 laps down in 11th and 12th. Mercedes had a similar result in the GTD class with their AMG GT-e machines scoring a 1-2 finish and 745 laps complete, in 22nd and 23rd overall. And the first-ever winner in new LMP-3 category, the Riley Motorsports Ligier came home 18th overall.
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There is no racing this weekend, although I understand there’s some kind of big football game Sunday. However, the NASCAR season begins with a compressed Daytona schedule mid-week next week.
The Busch Clash, the annual race for last season’s pole winners, race winners, stage winners, and former Clash and 500 winners, will take place on Tuesday and will air on FS1 at 4 p.m. For the first time ever, the Clash will run on the same Daytona road course used for the Rolex 24. All other racing activity for the week will take place on the 2.5 mile oval.
FS1 will carry Wednesday’ s Cup practice at 9:05 a.m. and pole qualifying at 4 p.m. Thursday the Duels will set the third through 40th starting spots beginning at 4 p.m. Friday we will see Camping World Truck qualifying at 12:10 p.m. and the race at 4:30 p.m. with Xfinity practice in between at 1:35 p.m.
Saturday is extremely busy with Cup practice on FS2 at 6:30 a.m. and final practice at 9:05 a.m. on FS1. Xfinity practice is at 7:40 a.m. on FS2, switching to FS1 at 8 a.m. The Xfinity race on FS1 is scheduled at 1 p.m. following the ARCA race at 10:30 a.m. also on FS1. FOX will take over on Sunday for the Daytona 500 with airtime at 11:30 a.m.
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The Busch Clash 21-car field will be set by blind draw on Monday. It will be the first run for the No. 23XI Toyota owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, but with a different driver. Bubba Wallace is not eligible for the Clash so Ty Dillon, who won a stage last season, will drive.
Dillon, who lost his ride in the team change, will drive the car in the clash, then switch to the No. 96 Gaunt Brothers Racing Toyota for the 500.
The Duels will see some eliminations this year, as 44 (and perhaps as many as 46) cars are expected to vie for the 40 spots in the race. Seven of those teams do not have a franchise for 2021 and will have to race their way into the 500.
