Sometimes it is just not your day.
It certainly wasn’t for our small New Zealand contingent racing in the Daytona 24 Hour over the weekend.
This morning NZT saw the chequered flag come down on the 60th running of the hallowed endurance event.
And there to greet it first was the Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Helio Castroneves, ending a ten-year drought for the team.
For Castroneves, the win comes in a successful 12-month stretch that saw him triumph in the Indy 500 as well.
“I never thought I’d be climbing the fence at Daytona and today I realised that dream,” he said. “That was absolutely incredible.”
To find the first car bearing the NZ Ensign you’ll have to go back to 12th overall; 27 laps back.
Earl Bamber drove the No.2 Chip Ganassi Cadillac behind the pit wall with a tad over seven hours remaining.
An earlier fuel drama had forced the team to use the reserve fuel pump, which also failed while Bamber was at the wheel.
It was an upsetting end to the race for CGR. Only hours earlier had the No.1 car of Scott Dixon run into mechanical gremlins.
Fortunately, both cars did finish. The No.1 only two places back in 14th overall.
Once Bamber got back into the car later in the race, he pushed his machine to the limit and set a new DPi lap record.
It wouldn’t stand for too long, however, as Alex Palou in the recovering No.1 would go even faster.
For those DPi cars that did avoid mechanical problems, it was an enthralling race with the finishing order only determined in the final few laps.
The lead swapped hands several times among the four remaining DPis.
The final margin between first and second overall was 3.5s, with Acura taking a 1-2 finish.
An exciting inter-Porsche battle for the GT Daytona Pro win also came down to the last tour.
Laurens Vanthoor dared a last-gasp overtake on Mathieu Jaminet at the Le Mans chicane for the win. But the two clashed and Vanthoor spun, dashing his hopes of some last minute heroics.
Porsche also claimed top honours in the GTD class.
