The Ruby Tuesday Championship Racing Team leads the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series Rolex 24 at
Daytona after the first six hours.
Under cloudy skies with a threat of rain, Joey Hand started the #23 Ruby Tuesday Championship Racing Team Porsche-powered Crawford Daytona Prototype on slick tyres, while eleven other DP cars gambled on rain tyres. Those who gambled came down on pit lane to changes tyres on the second pace lap allowing Hand to move from twelfth to fourth at the start.
Hand's stint lasted 16 laps and he was in sixth place before the first full course caution came out to remove debris from the front straight after a puncture for Helio Castroneves.
When the yellow came out, Hand brought the #23 machine to pit lane for service and a driver change, with former Rolex 24 GT winner Bill Auberlen getting into the car for his first stint.
The start of the race was hectic, Hand said. A lot of the cars in front of us pitted. They were all on rains and pitted for dry tires. The Ruby Tuesday guys made the right decision and we started on dry tires. The car is pretty darn good right now. We've got a new Porsche motor in the car and it is running a lot better than the one we had in earlier in the weekend.
When the race went green on lap 19, Auberlen was in 14th place after an air gun failure during the pit stop. Undaunted by the loss of track position, he put his head down and climbed back up to fourth before pitting under green flag conditions.
I wanted my first stint in the Ruby Tuesday/Alex Job car to be nice and clean, he said. We had some work cut out for us because an impact gun went bad on us. But, when we got out, the car was quite good.
We caught some people caught the main group. The car stayed good three quarters of the way through the stint. Then, we overbuilt the rear tires a little bit on pressure. But, they will make adjustments for the next stint. Now, it's just a distance race. We're going to keep it going, stay on the lead lap, don't get in trouble and be there at the end.
