{"id":436112,"date":"2026-01-25T07:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T07:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/436112\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T07:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T07:38:15","slug":"hunter-mcelreas-daytona-24-hopes-dashed-in-first-few-seconds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/436112\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunter McElrea\u2019s Daytona 24 hopes dashed in first few seconds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Hunter-McElrea-United-Autosport-2.jpg\" alt=\"McElrea\u2019s Daytona 24 hopes dashed in first few seconds\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe #2 United Autosports LMP2 entry (circled) was involved in a first lap crash in the 2026 Daytona 24.<\/p>\n<p>There was carnage in the opening seconds of the 24-hour epic when the LMP2 class cars hurtled into the infield.<\/p>\n<p>The #11 TDS Racing car driven by Toby Lutke was the first to go spinning as he lost control in the braking zone.<\/p>\n<p>Lutke collided with Naveen Rao in the #18 ERA Motorsports entry, who, in turn, hit George Kurtz in the #04 Crowdstrike Racing car.<\/p>\n<p>All three cars went spinning, and several more were forced to take evasive action.<\/p>\n<p>The #2 United Autosports car, driven by Phil Fayer and shared with Hunter McElrea, Ben Hanley, and Mikkel Jensen, avoided the initial melee, only to find itself in strife in a bizarre second incident.<\/p>\n<p>Having run wide into the Turn 1 run-off, Fayer sped back towards the track and clipped Lutke as he tried to turn his car around.<\/p>\n<p>Fayer spun and wound up facing the wrong way as the GTD Pro and GTD cars blew by.<\/p>\n<p>The #2 car was forced to pit at the end of the first lap and was taken behind the wall for repairs, eventually returning to the race towards the end of the first hour.<\/p>\n<p>However, just shy of the fourth hour, the car was brought back behind the pit wall with suspected drive shaft issues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter trying to play catch up, the #2 car returns behind the wall with suspected drive shaft damage, following on from the race start incident,\u201d wrote United Autosports.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe crew are back in the garage working hard to repair and rejoin the remaining 21 hours of the race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With 20 hours and 20 minutes remaining in the race, the #2 United Autosports LMP2 entry is 35 laps down on the leaders.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">9 Hour Recap! <br \/>Who is still awake with us? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/g1g8PYik37\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/g1g8PYik37<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 IMSA (@IMSA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IMSA\/status\/2015272339433206096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 25, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/285249\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/285249.gif\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The #2 United Autosports LMP2 entry (circled) was involved in a first lap crash in the 2026 Daytona&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-436112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}