Sunday, 30th March 2008

Ganassi pair maintains winning run.

“My stint was no problem because I knew there were going to be a lot of yellows, a lot of accidents,” Auberlen said. “I thought I would take it easy and let the race come to us because that is kind of how it was last year. The car was really good, especially after restarts. [However], on the last restart, the car became very loose and really bad.”

Hand was able to reel in the troubles of the #23 and led 14 laps before losing the lead to Pruett on lap 78. From there, Hand hung around for a runner-up finish.

“Our car was good enough today,” Hand said. “When we got here on Thursday, we were in the dumps. We were not good. But, the Ruby Tuesday crew worked and worked to find some stuff. When it looked like we should have packed up, they persevered. And today, we had the best race car that we had all weekend.”

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Rounding out the Daytona Prototype podium were Oswaldo Negri and Mark Patterson in the #60 Michael Shank Racing Ford Riley. Patterson qualified ninth and drove a trouble-free first stint before passing the car to Negri, who brought the #60 machine home on the podium after holding off Marc Goossens in the #91 Riley-Matthews Pontiac Riley over the last several laps.

Goossens and team-mate Jim Matthews finished fourth after sneaking by Matt Plumb in the #7 SigalSport Rum Bum BMW Riley late in the race. Plumb and Gene Sigal brought the #7 Rum Bum machine to the chequered flag in fifth. Lexus, Porsche, Ford, Pontiac and BMW marked five different Daytona Prototype engine manufacturers in the top five.

Five Daytona Prototypes led overall and nine Daytona Prototype cars finished on the lead lap. Michael Valiante led 20 laps early in the race in the #10 SunTrust Racing Pontiac Dallara in the Dallara's Rolex Series debut before a spinning Daytona Prototype collected Valiante and sent the team to the garage for repairs. Valiante and team-mate Max Angelelli finished 14th in class.

Kelly Collins and Paul Edwards led 51 laps to win the Rolex Series GT class from the pole at the GAINSCO Grand Prix of Miami.

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