Daytona 24: SAMAX hour 18 report

The No. 17 SAMAX Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car is still in the hunt for a top-10 GT finish in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, but the team's No. 11 Tuttle Team Racing/SAMAX Riley was out of the race after 16 hours.

The No. 17 Porsche was pushing for a class podium finish with stints from Johnny Mowlem, David Shep and Bryan Sellers. The charge was stopped when Sellers was cut off in traffic and had contact with another car, damaging the car's center radiator. The crew quickly replace the radiator, but dropped back to eighth at 18h. Boris Said reported the No. 11 Riley was losing power during his last stint in hour 14. Kyle Petty took over at 15h38, but rapidly lost oil pressure and the team decided to retire from the race.

Dr. Steve Bunkhall (No. 11 engineer): "The engine was losing oil pressure and clearly we had to stop before it failed. Over the last hour, Boris reported that he was losing speed. It's frustrating because he said that when he was running with the quicker cars, the car handled great and he could beat them under braking, but we were just losing out on top speed. The guys have worked so fantastically hard to get this car ready and come here at all, and so hard during the last 16 hours to keep it running, it's just a shame it's finished this way."

-samax-