Charles W. Luzier / Reuters

Dan Wheldon, left, Casey Mears, center, and Scott Dixon won the 44th Rolex 24 on Sunday in one of the closest finishes in race history.

updated 1:59 p.m. ET Jan. 29, 2006

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - It didn’t take long for new Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon to find their driving styles mesh quite well.

Joined by Casey Mears, who drives for Ganassi in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup series, the two Indy Racing League champions raced to a hard-earned victory in the Rolex 24, America’s most prestigious sports car endurance race.

“This race is so difficult, so hard to win,” Dixon said. “I can hardly believe we won it. But Chip gives us a great team and great equipment. Dan and I were also fast in the Phoenix (IRL) test earlier this week and I think there are going to be a lot more wins this year.”

Reigning IRL champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Wheldon, in only his second Rolex start and first since leaving Andretti Green Racing for Ganassi’s team, gave all the credit to his teammates.

“Those guys, particularly Scott, did just a great job,” Wheldon said. “It’s another good win to add to the Indy 500. It’s amazing.”

Avoiding major trouble was the key in this grueling twice-around-the-clock battle that saw seven different leaders, all of them among the 31 Daytona Prototypes that started at the front of the 66-car field at 12:10 p.m. Saturday.

Not even the winning Lexus Riley was immune to the mechanical problems that plagued many of the top teams in the race.

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“We had brake issues to start with, then a gearbox, then brakes again,” Dixon said. “Then we had some engine belts fall off three or four times. Yeah, and we couldn’t select some gears. I thought, eventually, it was going to knock us off the lead, but the team seemed to have an answer every time.”

The winners covered 734 laps and 2,613.04 miles on Daytona International Speedway’s 3.56-mile, 14-turn road circuit and averaged 108.826 mph. That was good for a one-lap victory over the Lexus Riley of Champ Car teammates A.J. Allmendinger and Justin Wilson and Oswaldo Negri and Mark Patterson.

Dixon, in the car at the end, was hit by race officials with a drive-through penalty for making unnecessary contact with the third-place car on a pass shortly after his last pit stop.

“It wasn’t anything intentional and, fortunately, we had a good cushion,” he said. “But you’ve never won this race until you cross the (finish) line and the team was very quiet on the radio the last three hours. It was kind of scary.”