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Porsche Leads Rolex24 After 6 Hours

Daytona Beach, FL ? A Brumos Porsche driven by Buddy Rice, David Donohue, Darren Law and Antonio Garcia held the lead position six hours into the Rolex24 at Daytona. The 47th running of the twice-around-the-clock Rolex Series race started at 3:30 p.m. Eastern.

With fast qualifier Donohue behind the wheel at the start, the Brumos Porsche led the opening lap before being overtaken by Timo Bernhard in the Penske Porsche.

The two Porsches dominated the early going, although a Mike Shank Racing Ford poked its nose in front for 15 laps.

The lead pack completed 181 laps around the 3.56-mile road course during the first quarter of the race.

Second place was the Ganassi Lexus of IndyCar champions Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti and Firestone Lights champion Alex Lloyd.
The Level 5 BMW held down third place with a second Brumos Porsche in fourth.

The Doran Racing Ford was fifth.

Forty-nine cars started the long race, the smallest field since 2003 when 44 cars took the green flag.

Sunny skies greeted a large crowd, many of whom were on pit road prior to the start of the race.

Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson is co-driving the GAINSCO Pontiac and he experienced clutch problems, losing nine laps while his team made repairs. ?The clutch started creeping and we had to fix it,? he said. ?After that I broke the gear box, which didn?t help us. I feel terrible about it.?
The team did make up three laps when they returned to the track.

A second Ganassi entry broke a splitter with Juan Pablo Montoya behind the wheel, but the crew made rapid repairs without losing too many positions.

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