Jan Lammers at the wheel of the Crawford SSC2K gave the Crawford team a good start to the Daytona 24 Hours which started at 1.05pm Florida time. At the flying start Lammers maintained his third place but dropped back to fifth in the early laps as he kept to the target speed of 1m 46sec.

The lead was immediately taken by Didier Theys in the Doran Racing Dallara. After the opening Theys pulled away from Werner Lupberger in the Ascari-Judd, with James Weaver third in the R &S Ford and Lammers fourth. After running third early on the Risi Ferrari 333SP dropped back to fifth place.

Team boss Max Crawford deciding on a conservative first pit stop and the Crawford was one of the first to make scheduled pin stop number one.

Johnny Mowlem took over the car and after fuel and fresh Goodyears, the car returned to the track after 57 secs in 7^th place. Mowlem soon settled into race pace and the car quickly moved back to 4^th place.

After the first round of pit stops the order was Theys, Elliot Forbes-Robinson in the second Dyson car, van de Poele in the Brabham and then the Crawford with the Ascari dropping to fifth.

A fancied runner in trouble as the race started was the Champion Lola Porsche which came into the pits instead of taking the start and lost 25 mins and 11 laps before the engine problem was sorted.

Before the start there was a lot of media interest around the the Crawford and particularly Tony Stewart. Amongst the well wishers was former F1 driver and Indy 500 winner Eddie Cheever.

The team says hello to Toyota Formula 1 driver and 2000 ALMS Champion Allan McNish, whose last sports car race was here a year ago. Allan is one of the many readers of our website.