The hardest working team in the garage during the recently concluded Rolex 24 At Daytona and BMW Performance 200?

That's easy: Continental Tire The Americas, the official tire supplier to both the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series and the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge.

Consider that each of 17 Daytona Prototype teams brought transporters to Daytona International Speedway. So likewise did Continental, its 17 rigs filled with 12,000 tires. If laid end to end, the tires would have spanned a distance of approximately 4.9 miles. That's 24.5 Empire State buildings – or the traffic backup on any given day on Interstate 405 in Los Angeles.

That's about four times the number of tires stocked for a normal GRAND-AM weekend. The 4,000 rain tires went back to the warehouse – a rarity considering Florida's unpredictable winter weather.

Continental Tire's Daytona trackside team consisted of 85 people – 11 engineers and 74 people working at the Trackside Services Center. During an average weekend, Continental Tire's staff is approximately 20.

At peak demand, the Continental Tire trackside services crew processed over 200 tires per hour. That works out to two minutes to dismount, mount and balance a tire.

The best news: no tire issues during several days of practice and qualifying and nearly 27 hours of racing.

"(The tires were) consistent throughout the whole run and I think I did my fastest lap three laps from the end," said Jordan Taylor, co-driver of the second-finishing No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette Daytona Prototype, following his stint early in the night. "So obviously they are very durable and it's nice to have a tire like that where you can push it the whole way through the stint and the fuel load is what matters now. So as the car gets lighter, you go faster."