DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A rare mistake by five-time Rolex 24 at Daytona overall winner Scott Pruett saw the 3GT Racing Lexus RC F GT3 crash out early during Saturday’s 55th running of the twice-around-the-clock endurance classic.

Running at the edge of the top 10, Pruett was working off the exit of the NASCAR speedway and into turn one of the infield road course when he cut the No. 14 to the left in an attempt to stay off the No. 4 Corvette C7. R GT Le Mans entry, hammering the inside barrier and sustaining heavy damage to the front fascia and left front suspension of the car.

The incident brought out the second full course caution of the event on lap 57, with just inside 20 minutes to go in the second hour of the event.

Pruett was evaluated and released from the infield care center, but team manager John Gentilozzi was unsure of what initially sparked the accident.

“We’re not really sure at the moment (what happened),” Gentilozzi said. “I’m glad Scott’s okay. The car doesn’t look to be that bad. We’ll see if we can fix it and get it back out there.”

For Pruett, Saturday was his first Rolex 24 appearance in a GT car since his first overall victory in 1994. The GT Daytona cars are allowed to run traction control, something different than what Pruett has been used to in his Prototype class appearances at Daytona.

Despite that fact, Gentilozzi did not think that traction control issues played a part in Pruett’s crash.

“No, we haven’t had any issues with traction control. Certainly we’ve been fighting a little bit of balance that Scott doesn’t like yet, but we were getting a handle on it and I think by the next pit stop we’d have had it figured out.”

Pruett was sharing the No. 14 Lexus this weekend with Sage Karam and Ian James.

The sister Lexus entry of Jack Hawksworth, Robert Alon and Austin Cindric runs 12th in class at the three hour benchmark of the event.