2006 DAYTONA 24HR

WHELDON, DIXON, MEARS WINS

• 2006 OVERALL WINNER: Target Chip Ganassi with Felix Sabates, Lexus Riley
• DRIVERS: Scott Dixon, NZ; Dan Wheldon, UK; Casey Mears, USA
• 2006 GT WINNER: TPC Racing, Porsche GT3 Cup
• Michael Levitas, Randy Pobst, Ian Baas, Spencer Pumpelly

DAYTONA 24 HOURS

44th DAYTONA 24, JAN 26-29, 2006

RACE RESULT: 2005 DAYTONA 24 HOURS

WINNER: CASEY MEARS: "There are only a few big races in the world and this is definitely one of them. I can't believe we're sitting up here right now and that we won this race. Everybody's up late, you're tired, and there are a lot of things that go on. It hasn't even really sunk it yet that we actually won. It was so much fun and it feels great."

WINNER: WHELDON: "This is a race you know about and want to take part in, especially with the beginning of our season we don't test too much in Indy cars and it's a great way to get you up to speed with that stuff. But there are some great names that have won this race. To be part of that is very, very special"

FINAL RESULT AFTER 24 HOURS

• 1 Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon, Casey Mears, 734 LAPS, 24 HOURS
• 2 Oswaldo Negri, Mark Patterson, A.J. Allmendinger, Justin Wilson +1 LAP
• 3 Lucas Luhr, Mike Rockenfeller, Patrick Long, +3 LAPS
• 4 DONOHUE/LAW/MAASSEN +4 LAPS
• 5 KROHN/JONSSON/BERGME +17 LAPS
• 6 GIDLEY/MCDOWELL/BARR +18 LAPS
• 7 BORCHELLER/BRIX/BARB +31 LAPS
• 8 DFRANCHITTI/DUNO/MFR +39 LAPS
• 9 GT WINNER:
  Randy Pobst, Michael Levitas, Spencer Pumpelly, Ian Baas +43 LAPS
• 10 GT: Andy Lally, Marc Bunting, R.J. Valentine, Johnny O'Connell, +46 LAPS

QUALIFYING - POLE:

Alex Job Racing/Emory Motorsports on Pole for 24 at Daytona

• Daytona Beach, Florida -- Alex Job Racing/Emory Motorsports will start the 44th running of the Grand American Rolex Series Presented by Crown Royal Reserve Rolex 24 Hour at Daytona from pole position on Saturday.
• Lucas Luhr drove the number 23/Alex Job Racing/Emory Motorsports/Porsche Crawford to the front row of the grid by posting a time of 1:44.009 and an average speed of 123 mph around the modified oval at the World Center of Racing. The German was not able to best the teams fastest practice time of three weeks ago, a lap of 1:43.431.
• “The car was really good and the weather conditions could not have been better for our pole run,” said Luhr. “I went out early and was with some fast cars that were behaving and was able to turn a pretty good time. A few laps later when my tires really started to come in I was held up by a couple of guys, I had a few more tenths in the car and I really would have liked to get back into the 43s but the pole is a good result. The team has put a lot of work into this car since they received it in November. Since my first laps in this new car I have been really comfortable, it is easy to drive fast and the Porsche power will be very helpful with all of the traffic come Saturday. We need to focus on getting a good setup on the car so we can maximize our opportunities in traffic.”
• For Alex Job this is his first pole position at Daytona. “This is a nice reward for the team, we have been really working hard to get this unproven Porsche/Crawford package debugged for our run at the 24. Crawford and Xtrac have really done a great job to support this effort. This is the only Porsche/Crawford combination in the race, which creates some unknown factors. We have been able to overcome those with a great deal of work and diligence from everyone involved. Lucas did a nice job to back up all of our fast practice times and put it on the pole. The pole is nice, but the payout we are looking for is Sunday at noon.”

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