The Rolex 24 at Daytona always signals the beginning of the racing season and it started out well for the Action Express Racing team. Joao Barbosa led the No. 5 Corvette car to victory after successful stints throughout the race by his teammates Christian Fittipaldi and Sebastien Bourdais.

Barbosa had to beat out Max Angelelli in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing car in the final eight-plus minutes after a controversial caution to capture the win by 1.461 seconds. The Wayne Taylor Racing team fought a brave race with Angelelli, Wayne Taylor, Wayne’s sons Ricky and Jordan. The yellow flag occurred with 21 minutes to go after a Porsche ran off the track and into a chicane, but the crew worked hard to clean up the track for the race to go green for a long enough stretch at the end. 

It was the second Rolex 24 win for the Action Express Racing team after taking their first-ever race in 2010. It was Barbosa’s second overall Rolex 24 win in his last four years, while Fittipaldi earned his second victory a decade removed from his last. It was Bourdais first taste of victory to add to his incredible list of wins throughout his career. 

"It took a lot of preparation," Barbosa said. "It's an ongoing process, and I think finally everything is clicking and everything is working really well. This definitely didn't happen overnight and these guys have put in more than 12,000 hours of work since the last race. It's unbelievable what they've done."

Last year’s winner, the No. 01 car from Chip Ganassi/Felix Sabates was unable to defend their title after suffering from car problems at the start of the race. And to further Chip Ganassi’s frustration, the No. 02 car driven by Scott Dixon had to deal with a rear flat tire while running in second. 

The Rolex 24 was the first race under the Tudor United SportsCar Championship after unifying the American Le Mans Series with the Grand-Am Series. 

Other winners for their respective classes were the No. 55 Ferrari 458 car of Pier Guidi after a penalty assessed to him was rescinded after no contact was declared giving him the victory over the No. 45 Audi car of Markus Winkelhock in the GTD class; the No. 54 car of Colin Braun was the top car in the PC Class; and the No. 911 Porsche of Patrick Pilet won in the GTLM class. 

There was a scary crash that occurred in the early stages of the race between the No. 99 Corvette of Memo Gidley and the No. 62 Ferrari of Matteo Malucelli. Both drivers were taken straight to the Halifax Health Medical Center, but it was clear that Gidley was in the worse shape. In the end, Gidley was conscious and suffered a broken back and injuries to his left arm and left leg. It could have been much worse and we wish Gidley all the best in his recovery. Malucelli came out of the incident without any major injuries and was released after being assessed.

This is the fourth consecutive year that an IndyCar driver was involved with the overall winning team. Bourdais kept the streak alive after Charlie Kimball (2013), Justin Wilson (2012) and Graham Rahal (2011) had done it before him. There were more than a dozen IndyCar drivers in the field including some Canadian content in Alex Tagliani and James Hinchcliffe.

The next race in the Tudor United SportsCar Championship will be on March 15th at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring; while the 2014 IndyCar season begins March 30th with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.