Castroneves victorious at Daytona 24-hour race

Helio Castroneves climbed the fence for the third time in a year after earning another crown-jewel victory, this time a second-consecutive win in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The Brazilian closed out the race for Meyer Shank Racing, the team that helped him win a record-tying fourth Indianapolis 500 in May.

Castroneves in the No. 60 Acura held off Ricky Taylor over the final hour of the twiceround-the-clock race — an intriguing close because Castroneves won his first career Rolex watch 365 days ago as Taylor’s teammate in the No. 10 Acura.

The win for Michael Shank came on the 10th anniversary of Shank’s first victory in North America’s most prestigious sports-car race. That win in the 50th running of the Rolex with the late Justin Wilson and NASCAR driver AJ Allmendinger gave Shank’s fledgling program credibility, and Castroneves since May has helped Shank show the team is a legitimate force.

Castroneves will drive the full IndyCar season for Shank this year in a two-car effort that includes his former Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud. Shank grabbed both Castroneves and Pagenaud to help his full-time IMSA sports-car drivers Olivier Jarvis and Tom Blomqvist win the 60th running of the Rolex.

Skiing: Cornelia Huetter and Federica Brignone tied for first place in a World Cup super-G in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, in the final race before the Beijing Olympics.

Brignone looked certain to secure a third super-G win of the season after a dominant performance from start to finish on the Kandahar course, but she could only smile and shake her head in disbelief as Huetter crossed the line with the same time of 1:18.19.

Huetter’s Austrian teammate, Tamara Tippler was third fastest, 0.82 behind. Obituary: The New York Mets announced that former reliever Jeff Innis has died at age 59. The submarine-style right-hander, who had been fighting cancer, pitched in 288 games from 1987 to ’93, all with the Mets.