But the attention was on Montoya, who is clearly under pressure to perform this year, the final year of his contract with Ganassi.
"I think you always race for your job. It's normal," Montoya shrugged.
He stepped up Saturday and Sunday as the No. 01 team had to balance out Kimball's inexperience. It was the first time racing in a car with a roof on it for Kimball, who has diabetes and uses his fight with the disease as his platform.
"Having these guys as teammates takes a heck of a lot off my shoulders because I knew that I could settle in, and as long as I was smart and didn't make too many big mistakes and kept us in the race, they'd put us in a position to win at the end," said Kimball, who had one turn in the car for two late-night stints.
The Chevrolet team of Angelelli, defending IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay and Jordan Taylor finished second for team owner Wayne Taylor — redemption after an engine failure 22 minutes in last year's event ended the team's day. But Angelelli was bothered by engine restrictions to their Chevy that gave the Ganassi BMW's a clear power advantage.
"We have something restricted, OK? Just like driving with handcuffs; you can't do it, can't drive," he said. "Montoya and the 01 car is another league, is an A class. We are B class."
Defending race winner Michael Shank Racing twice came back from seven laps down to finish third in a Ford. It was a disappointing finish for team owner Shank, but a moral victory considering the hole the team clawed out of to make it to the podium.
Allmendinger, racing at Daytona for the first time since NASCAR suspended him for failing a random drug test hours before the July race here, teamed with fellow NASCAR driver Marcos Ambrose, IndyCar driver Justin Wilson and Grand-Am regulars John Pew and Ozz Negri for the finish.
Ambrose was added to last year's winning lineup after Negri broke his leg a month ago during offseason training, but Negri was able to return to the car this weekend for limited driving duties a mere six days after his cast was removed.
"We were saying that on the way over, John and I, how if you'd have told us after the first hour we could have a chance of finishing third, we would have been over the moon," Wilson said. "As we were on the podium, we were thinking, well, there's nothing quite like being first, but we just have to be grateful for the chance we had."
Audi Sport Customer Racing won the GT class in an Audi R8 with drivers Filipe Albuquergue, Oliver Jarvis, Edoardo Mortara and Dion von Moltke.
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