DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Racing is all about one thing for Chip Ganassi: winning.

After the quartet of Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas gave the car owner an unprecedented third straight Rolex 24-Hour win, Ganassi was jubilant.

"All I could think about when Scott took the checkered flag was saying to these other guys: 'How's that taste? How's that feel?' You just can't put it into words. You just know it feels good and you want it to last," Ganassi explained.

Unlike NASCAR contemporaries like Rick Hendrick, Roger Penske and Jack Roush, Ganassi's main business is his race team and the former open-wheel driver's bottom line is winning.

"My favorite win is always the most recent one," said Ganassi, whose NASCAR team will be back here in two weeks hoping to win its first Daytona 500 with Montoya, stock car rookie Franchitti and Reed Sorenson. "Obviously, this is a huge accomplishment, but I'm not retiring any time soon. I'm still trying to climb the mountain. There's still a lot of peaks to conquer."

Other than a minor handling problem for Pruett at the start of the race Saturday, the team's No. 01 Lexus Riley Daytona Prototype was virtually perfect, racing at or near the lead in the most competitive running in the 46-year history of the event until the waning hours.

At dawn on Sunday, with about six hours to go, there were five other prototypes on the lead lap. But, as often happens in endurance events, attrition suddenly took its toll.

The Ganassi car had been swapping leads with the Ford Riley shared by NASCAR's A.J. Allmendinger, Ian James, Burt Frisselle and John Pew. That car, driven by Frisselle, was just seconds behind the leader when a tire blew, damaging the suspension midway through the 21st hour and knocking it out of contention.