Franchitti was at the wheel of the Chip Ganassi Racing entry when it drove into the lead just past midnight Saturday night.
Ganassi's two-car team was trying to pull off the unprecedented feat of winning the twice-around-the-clock classic at Daytona International Speedway for the fourth straight year.
With four cars on the lead lap and eight within five laps of the leaders, the Porsche Riley shared by JC France, son of NASCAR board member Jim France, six-time Daytona winner Hurley Haywood, Joao Barbosa and Terry Borcheller, was second, followed by the defending champion Ganassi entry of NASCAR's Juan Pablo Montoya and defending Grand-Am Rolex Series champions Scott Pruett, a seven-time Daytona winner, and Memo Rojas.
The latter Ganassi car overcame a broken front splitter that cost it two laps in the garage to surge back into contention, just seconds behind the leaders.
"So far so good at this stage in the race," Dixon said after giving up the seat to Montoya late Saturday night. "We've been hanging around and have been pretty consistent so far.
"Dario, Alex and the team have all done their part as we reach the nine-hour mark, so we are right where we need to be. The Porsches have definitely been fast to this point, but we just need to be in position to race them in the last few hours tomorrow."
The first three hours of the event were cleaner than usual, with no caution flags on the 3.56-mile road circuit that snakes through the infield and also uses about three-fourths of the 21/2-mile NASCAR oval.
But, once Jep Thornton brought out the first caution with a crash in the car entered by actor Patrick Dempsey, there was more yellow than green, with a total of nine full-course cautions in the first nine hours. Dempsey's car got back into the race after a long stop for repairs, trailing the leaders by 81 laps.
Jimmie Johnson, the three-time reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup champion, also had some back luck as the Pontiac Riley he shares with former CART champion Jimmy Vasser and Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty. He stopped to have a broken tail light replaced and wound up having the gearbox replaced. The entry fell nine laps behind, but had made up four of them and was ninth after nine hours.
"The clutch was creeping real bad and I broke the gearbox trying to get it in gear," Johnson said. "I really feel terrible about that.
"But the car's driving great. We're lightning fast in the infield, but we're missing some straightline speed. We're about a second off, no matter who is in the car. We've got to run a different race and hope we catch some cautions at the right time. But there's still a lot of racing left."
The fourth car on the lead lap at 12:30 a.m. was the new Penske Racing Porsche Riley driven by Tim Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Ryan Briscoe.
The pole-winning Porsche Riley shared by David Donohue, Buddy Rice, Antonio Garcia and Darren Law fell out of the lead in the 10th hour when Garcia spun off track. But the team remained in contention with more than half the grueling event to run, just three laps off the pace in eighth.
The two Ganassi cars struggled a bit in the daylight with grip on the warm track, but Dixon appeared to be right when he said he expected them to be stronger after dark.
"The way these cars are set up, we're going to get more grip on a cooler track and the engines are going to be even stronger at night," said the New Zealander, who won the IndyCar title and the Indy 500 last year.
The race began in sunny conditions in the 70s and good weather was forecast for the entire race, with temperatures dropping only into the mid-50s overnight.
Before the race ends at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, the winning car will cover more than 2,000 miles.
Preparation, talent and luck all needed at Daytona
Four-way battle at Daytona with 5 hours to go
