Seven Class Wins in Six Different Cars
Variety a Key to Pruett's Success in Rolex 24
A great variety of impressive race cars has competed in the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Over the past three decades, Scott Pruett enjoyed the opportunity to race in many of them - enjoying success in a variety of cars.

Since making his Rolex 24 debut in 1985, the Californian has captured a record seven class victories in America's premier sports car race - driving six different race cars. Hurley Haywood and Peter Gregg are second on the list with six each - although Haywood is the event's leading winner with five overall victories.

Pruett scored his second overall Rolex 24 victory last January, joining Juan Pablo Montoya and Salvador Duran in the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates No. 01 Telmex Lexus Riley. Pruett has found a home with that team, sharing the 2004 Daytona Prototype championship with Max Papis, while losing the 2007 crown in the closing laps of the season.

Here's a look back at the different cars Pruett has driven in the Rolex 24, followed by his comments:

Pruett first came to Daytona International Speedway as a 24-year-old rookie, sharing Mike Meyer's Daffy Swimwear Mazda RX-7 with Paul Lewis and Joe Varde. The team finished 18th overall and second in GTU behind Amos Johnson's Team Highball Mazda RX-7.

I think that left me with a 50-percent hearing loss. Those cars were so horribly loud. Then, the muffler actually fell off about halfway through the race. It was a great experience for my first time in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, but certainly, not a great experience overall.

Jack Roush also made his Rolex 24 debut in 1985, with Wally Dallenbach Jr., John Jones and Doc Bundy taking the GTO class victory in a Roush Protofab Ford Mustang partnered with Charlie Selix and Gary Pratt.

For 1986, Pruett was part of the Roush lineup, teamifng with Olympic dechathlon champion Bruce Jenner and German endurance star Klaus Ludwig in a Mustang. The team finished fifth overall and second in GTO.

I met Bruce Jenner a number of years earlier than that, and then had the opportunity to drive with him for that whole season. That was quite exciting.

After finishing second in class twice, Pruett made the top of the podium in 1987, co-driving the No. 11 Roush Mustang with Tom Gloy, Bill Elliott and Lyn St. James. He also co-drove the third place No. 22 Mustang with Deborah Gregg, Bobby Akin and Scott Goodyear.

The Roush Mustangs were great cars to drive. They were real durable. For what they were at the time, they were pretty good cars, and obviously, they went on to win a lot of races there at the Rolex 24.

Pruett made it two class victories in a row in 1988, co-driving a Roush Mercury Merkug XR4Ti. He co-drove to 10th overall with Akin, Paul Miller and Pete Halsmer. After finishing 58th in the No. 27 Rocketsports Oldsmobile with Jerry Clinton and Les Lindley, owned by Paul Gentilozzi, in the 1989 event, Pruett was back in 1990 with Roush in No. 11 Lincoln-Mercury Cougar XR-7. He finished eighth overall, third in GTO with Dorsey Schroeder, Max Jones and Robert Lappalainen.

The Mercuries weren't really that different from the Roush Mustangs. Once you got under the skin, they were basically the same car. Like the Mustangs, they were fun to drive.

The Cougar wasn't the car Pruett intended to drive that year, though. He was entered in the event with Dyson Racing in a Porsche 962. While he tested and practiced in that car with Rob Dyson, James Weaver and Vern Schuppan, he didn't get to drive it in the race.

The Dyson Porsche 962 was a very cool car. Unfortunately, it didn't race very long. We went out six laps into the race in a brand new Porsche 962. We were the first car out of the event. Even though I didn't get to race it, those were great cars to drive.

At that point, Pruett was recognized as one of America's premier GT drivers. He captured three championships, and was headed to a career in Champ Car. However, he missed most of 1990 recoveries from serious leg injuries suffered in a testing accident at West Palm Beach, Florida. Pruett began his comeback at Daytona, where he also made his fourth of eight career IROC appearances in 1991, and won that year's opening race at Daytona. For 1991 through 1993, he also joined Tom Walkinshaw Racing's Jaguar team for the Rolex 24.

After starting second in 1991, Pruett went out midway through the event in the No. 2 TWR Jaguar XJR-12 he shared with Davy Jones, Raul Boesel and Derek Warwick. The following year, he finished second overall in an XJR-12D, sharing the GTP class victory with Jones, Scott Goodyear and David Brabham. Jones, Goodyear and Pruett took 10th overall in 1993 in the No. 2 XJR-12D, and were credited with the Group C class victory.

The Jaguars were very cool cars to drive. We were leading overall a lot of those times, but it seemed each year, with only two or three hours to go, unfortunately the cars failed on us.

TWR was a very professional group with a long-standing history of endurance racing. The team was headed up by Tony Dowe, and it was first class all the way. Typically, we had two or three cars. It was a great organization to work for. When we came in, the team cars looked great and everything looked and ran strong. We were the show stoppers. We were certainly the team to beat.

Looking back, the only thing we should have changed was the fact that we drove those cars 10-10ths every lap; maybe not 10-10ths, but certainly 99 percent every lap, and we didn't make it to the end as many times as we would have liked to.

Pruett was back in a GT car for the 1994 Rolex 24, and went on to score his first overall victory. Driving Clayton Cunningham's GTS class Nissan 300ZX with Gentilozzi, Butch Leitzinger and Steve Millen, Pruett beat the new headline World Sports Cars and everyone else, winning by 24 laps.

While the Nissan wasn't as spectacular to drive as the Jaguar, it was very solid and very fast; a very good car. It didn't have the downforce of the prototypes. With the transitioning of the series, we were in the unique position where we could bring a car in like the Nissan, and win the race overall with great performance and great durability.

Pruett was part of Porsche's team to drive the top-secret "X Machine" in 2005, joining Mario Andretti and Bob Wollek in a Walkinshaw-built open-cockpit Porsche. Only two weeks before the event, the sanctioning body announced a rule change that restricted the new Porsches, and the factory angrily withdrew the cars - including a second entry for Pruett, Hans Stuck, Theirry Boutsen and Geoff Brabham.

I never even got to drive that car. That would have been pretty spectacular. I've never had the opportunity to co-drive with Mario, but I spent a lot of time with Bob, and, in 1986, we co-drove to victory at Columbus in the Bayside Porsche 962.

Pruett finished back in the back in his next two appearances, driving a Panoz GTR-1 with Andy Wallace, Bundy and Boesel to 39th in 1998, and a Saleen S7R to 74th in 2001 with Gentilozzi, John Miller and Anthony Lazzaro. The following year, Pruett returned with Gentilozzi in the Jaguar XKR that Rocketsports raced in the Trans-Am Series. Joined by Michael Lauer and Brian Simo, the quartet finished fifth overall and first in the GTS classification.

That was a glorified Trans-Am car. It was easy to drive, very functional and had good power. It's not easy taking a sprint format car to the Rolex 24, but I think Rocketsports did a good job prepping the car. We just had an ongoing problem with the drive pins in the rear and had to change them a couple of times, but we never missed much time on the racetrack.

This year will mark Pruett's fourth in the Ganassi Lexus Riley. He won the pole for the Rolex 24 in both 2004 and 2005. He placed 10th overall and sixth in Daytona Prototype in the earlier event, joined by Max Papis, Jimmy Morales and Scott Dixon.

For 2005, he was seventh overall with Luis Diaz and Ryan Briscoe. While the team struggled to 39th overall and 20th in DP in 2007, with Diaz and Papis, Pruett returned to score his second overall victory here last year.

The car got better and better each year, and we were in a position to win each time out. The first year we brought out a brand-new car. It rained and rained, and our windshield wiper broke off after 12 hours and we struggled. The next year, a tire exploded on the front straight three hours into the race, and ripped up a bunch of the car. We made it to the checker, but it was a lot of unbelievable work by the team getting there. Then, we were leading the race when we went out in 2006 with an unfortunate engine issue.

Last year was the best Rolex 24 I've ever run. The car never missed a beat and all the drivers and the entire team did a fantastic job. We had great speed and never had to wring the car out. If we had some hard competition in the closing hour, we could have raced it very, very hard - but, we didn't have to. It was a great race all the way, but we were positioned to take it up a notch. As things worked out, we didn't have to. It was the most exciting race I've run, as well. The competition was staggering. When you get in the closing hours and have three teams going for it - that's what racing's all about.

And, I think you'll see the same thing this weekend. We're going to continue doing what we've been doing. Our car is ready to roll out and do 24 hours right now, and I think we will have the cars to beat.