DAYTONA BEACH — It took just over four hours for the checkered flag to fly on the BMW M Endurance Challenge at Daytona International Speedway on Friday evening.

Yet after 107 laps, it was right on time for Harrison Burton.

Piloting the PF Racing No. 41 Ford Mustang, Burton just held off hard-charging Spencer Pumpelly by 0.688 seconds to claim the Grand Sport Class and overall win. In the TCR Class, Jon Morley powered the No. 61 Road Shagger Racing Audi and held off Make LaMarra in the No. 73 Honda Civic over the final eight laps.

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Burton, driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford in the NASCAR Cup Series, teamed with Craftsman Truck Series driver Zane Smith, with Smith logging the first two-and-a-half hours or so, leading 43 laps along the way.

Upon getting in the car, Burton immediately dropped back a few spots. But a couple of fortunate cautions and a mechanical problem with 22 minutes to go for Elliott Skeer, cleared the way for the 22-year-old son of Jeff Burton to rally all the way back.

“One point for the NASCAR guys, I guess,” Burton said in Victory Lane.

Indeed.

The race’s other two NASCAR competitors — Hailie Deegan and Ben Rhodes — combined to finish third in the No. 42 PF Racing Ford. Like Smith, Deegan drove just over two-and-a-half hours before yielding to Rhodes, who gave up second place to Pumpelly with three laps remaining.

For much of the final hour, Skeer was in control, leading on the final restart 89 laps in and immediately putting three seconds of distance between his No. 47 Porsche and the pair of Fords. But with just 22 minutes left, he pulled off the track and never got going again.

That allowed Burton and Rhodes to speed by and though Pumpelly went from fifth to third a few laps later, the distance was just too great to make up by the time the checkered flag flew.

“Zane was so fast in the beginning, I was like, ‘Man, I don’t want to get in this thing, he’s driving away with it’,” Burton said. “I was bummed out early, got shuffled out on the first pit stop and I thought, ‘Man, I don’t want to be the guy that lets the team down.’

“Then we had a few restarts that came our way and we shuffled our way through there … Zane did an awesome job not burning the brakes off of it but that’s what I did. Spencer started catching me because I couldn’t drive it as hard as I wanted anymore.”

Meanwhile, all Smith could do was watch from pit lane.

“Watching Harrison at the end there had me shaking in my boots, especially when Spencer was coming,” Smith said. “But he did an awesome job not making any mistakes.”

The No. 72 Murillo Racing Mercedes, driven by Kenny Murillo and Christian Szymczak finished fourth with the No. 9 Automatic Racing Aston Martin, piloted by Jim Jonsin, Brett Sandbert and Tom Long, rounding out the top five.

Mark Wilkins also had the lead in the final hour in the TCR Class before settling for third in the No. 98 Hyundai Elantra.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona's BMW CHALLENGE: Ford's Harrison Burton, Zane Smith hang on