Hour 12

The 2009 Rolex 24 at Daytona has reached the halfway point. Rob Finlay is behind the wheel of Childress-Howard Motorsport's No. 2 Gentleman Jack Pontiac Crawford and currently running in the 19th position.

Finlay took over for Andy Wallace who was running 21st while under caution on lap 342 at 2:46 a.m. Wallace had completed a particularly long run and, after quickly debriefing with crew chief and wife Catherine Crawford Wallace, was happy to dine on a cold breaded chicken fillet and a bottle of GatorAde.

"I got a little bit of rest in between stints. If you get a clear lap when tires are fresh, you can get the car into the 43s and 44s. It's not as quick as we need to be to be at the front but the Gentleman Jack Pontiac is still running strong. That's the important thing. We're almost to the halfway point and if we can keep this pace up there (the front) or thereabouts. Unfortunately, we have got an electrical glitch which we really don't think we can fix so it will either hang on or it won't.

"Blimey, there were so many close calls I can't even remember one in particular. Whenever you do a long stint, the amount of near-misses is large. It's funny, I'll go back the next day or later in the week, and I'll be lying in bed at night and the memories of those near-misses will come back, where you just missed having an accident. The was one, actually. There was some debris on the banking and I came on it right as I went into fifth gear so I was doing about 170 mph. It was a rather large piece of debris and I had to swerve to miss it. I almost swerved into the wall to get around it but it was gone the next lap."