Penkse had a great 1-2 finish at Utah
Intersport
Penske
Dyson
B-K Motorsports
Click a link to go directly to that story!
Intersport
Intersport Leads Utah Grand Prix, Finishes Second in LMP1
Tooele, Utah- Intersport Racing enjoyed its best run of the season Sunday in the American Le Mans Series Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix presented by The Grand and Little America Hotels. Jon Field drove the No. 37 Very Berry Exotics Lola B06/10 AER to the front early on, leading a number of laps and finishing second in the LMP1 category.
Lining up in eighth position overall, Jon made a fantastic start, powering into second place by Turn 1. The veteran racer then set his eyes on race leader Marco Werner and by the lap 2, Jon passed the Audi to take the overall lead. Once up front, he then began to pull away slightly from the two factory diesels, leading five laps overall, the first for an E85-fueled car.
"I tucked behind one of the Audis," Jon explained of the start. "I figured he was going to the front too. We're fast down the straightaway, so I figured it was the right car to be behind. I tried to make my move at the end there, and they were really nervous on tires like I was, so I could maneuver around him pretty good. It was really nice."
Jon pitted under the first yellow with 20 minutes complete for four fresh Dunlop tires and E85 fuel, staying at the wheel of the Very Berry Exotics machine. He wasted no time getting back into the top-five, as Jon passed the Audi of Frank Biela for fourth position on lap 18. However, power steering problems began to develop, causing Jon to spin the car on lap 36 and subsequent trouble re-firing the motor.
Jon pitted again at the one-hour, 13-minute mark, handing over to son, and team owner, Clint. The 2004 Le Mans class winner kept the Lola out of trouble for his stint before making a final stop near the two-hour mark. Clint relinquished controls to Richard Berry, who nursed the car to the finish line in 12th overall, second in class.
"We had no power steering," Berry said after the race. "Some of the time it would kick on and off so I had to battle that. I was definitely hobbling there needless to say, but I brought it home. We'll take it whatever way we can get it. We had a good show with Jon out there in the beginning. It was pretty good considering we didn't have any testing here. We'll take it."
The Ohio-based team took advantage of the retirement of the No. 1 Audi, which crashed out late in the race. The AER-powered #37 Lola ended the day with a fine second place finish in LMP1, their best result of the season.
"Everything really worked well today," Clint said. "The Lola, Dunlop tires, and the AER engine was just unbelievable. It was good all around. We didn't think we'd do too well here, but with the long straight and AER engine, it really proved to be pretty good. Seeing dad lead was a morale booster for all of us. Everyone was cheering down here and having a good time."
Intersport certainly had something to cheer about. The team not only overcame power steering issues in the race but also rebounded from a lack of track time. Gearbox failure on Friday and a clutch problem on Saturday morning cost them nearly two hours of practice, leaving the trio with little experience of the new 3.048-mile outer course.
"For not having a lot of track time, I think that was a pretty good showing," Clint added. "We'll get back to the shop and get ready for some tests in June. We're going to get out to Mid-Ohio and Road America so we can hopefully be more prepared. We'll be a little quicker."
Penske
Penske DHL Porsches Sweep Top Two Spots at Utah Grand Prix
TOOELE, Utah - After no one on the Penske Porsche Racing team thought that the Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix presented by The Grand and Little America Hotels feature race could possibly match the excitement of qualifying the day before, a combination of flawless driving and incisive pit strategy gave the team's Porsche RS Spyders a one-two overall American Le Mans Series win at Miller Motorsports Park.
Romain Dumas (France) and Timo Bernhard (Germany) took the lead for good with 35 minutes to go in the two-hour, 45-minute event after the leading Gil de Farran/Simon Pagenaud Acura had to pit for fuel and tires. The No. 7 Dumas/Bernhard Porsche had done its normal pit stop duties with a little more than an hour to go, and was poised for a non-stop finish. The No. 6 Penske Porsche RS Spyder, with Sascha Maassen (Germany) and Patrick Long (USA) also made up a place in class when the Acura stopped, and move up two places overall to second when both LMP1 Audis had incidents on the course.
Tim Cindric, president of Penske Racing, was very proud of the team effort and the strategy that resulted in victory. "It's been a while since our historic win at Sebring, and it was great to have another overall victory, but, more importantly, it was important to extend our lead over the Acuras, which have shown again that they are very competitive. We now have a good LMP2 points lead, but it took a perfect stint from each of our four drivers to get a one-two finish plus a good strategy and great pit work," said Cindric.
The impressive 1-2 finish also brought Penske Racing to the doorstep of a watershed moment in its storied history. The win by Bernhard and Dumas was the 299th victory in the history of Penske Racing.
Romain Dumas, who took the checkered flag for the winning No. 7 car, pointed out this is their third win in class out of four events, and, while the overall wins are nice, they are just being in the right place at the right time. "We get important points and win championships by defeating our competitors in class, but we enjoy the satisfaction of besting the Audis. It was fun racing with Lucas (Luhr) and the Audi, but, at the end, we had to be careful to make sure we finished," said Dumas.
Timo Bernhard, who shared the LMP2 title with Dumas in 2007, said it was tough for the drivers to follow the strategy when they saw the competitors ahead of them on the track. "The strategy at the beginning was to take care of the car, and the race would come to us. It was very tough to stay to the strategy when there were times we didn't feel it was going to work, but we trusted team and, as usual, they were right," said Bernhard.
Maassen and Long were caught in the frenetic dash to turn one at the beginning of the race, and found themselves in ninth place after only 2,500 yards, but they too stuck to the strategy, moving up two spots when two Acuras collided in that turn, and more spots when Audis had their problems. Finally, with 15 minutes left, Long led the de Farran/Pagenaud Acura by ten seconds, a lead he was able to maintain until the checkered flag was in sight, when he slowed down to earn a four-second win. "We were conserving fuel when Pagenaud was catching us, but we turned several equal laps to make sure he knew we could so it if pushed. Sascha really kept the car out of danger in a very difficult first stint," said Long, the only American Porsche factory driver.
The race offered another impressive performance by the American Le Mans Series LMP2 class as P2 cars claimed the top six finishing positions.
The Dumas/Bernhard combo now lead the Scott Sharp/David Brabham Acura drivers in the LMP2 championship by 28 points (86 - 58), with both Dyson Racing team driving pairings in hot pursuit (Leitzinger/Franchitti with 46 points and Dyson/Smith with 43 points). In the manufacturers championship for LMP2, Porsche has a 21-point lead over Acura, and in the team championship, Penske Racing leads Acura's Highcroft Racing by 28 points, with Dyson Racing only four points behind.
Penkse had a great 1-2 finish at Utah
Dyson
Fast Track
Befitting a race track right up the Interstate from the Bonneville Salt Flats, today's third running of Utah Grand Prix was one of the faster races in ALMS history. In a race that mirrored the close competiveness of qualifying, Dyson Racing finished fourth and sixth on one of the more demanding circuits on the American Le Mans circuit.
Butch Leitzinger and Marino Franchitti in the #20 Thetford/Norcold entry moved up to third in the championship with their fourth place finish. "Alan Wilson has designed a track conducive to this kind of close competitive racing," said Leitzinger. "You are able to muscle the car around to create opportunities to pass and we were able to do that today and gain some good points."
Chris Dyson and Guy Smith in the #16 Porsche RS Spyder started from the back of the grid, after having to change tires because of a puncture in yesterday's qualifying, but charged to a sixth place finish, with Dyson moving the car up sixteen positions in the first ten laps. "We knew we had a good race car and were able to capitalize on our speed and good pit stops," noted Dyson.
Leitzinger had a good start, advancing to sixth at the start and was third by lap twelve. Butch handed the car over to Marino Franchitti an hour and ten minutes into the race in sixth place. Franchiiti had a spirited battle with Simon Pagenaud for a podium finish, closing the gap lap by lap to under a second in the closing half hour, but fuel conservation in the last laps widened the gap at the end.
Dyson had an equally determined race taking the car from twenty-sixth to seventh when Guy Smith got in the car on the fifty-third lap. Smith finished sixth, setting his fastest race lap three laps from the end.
"This was a race of spirited driving," stated Dyson. "Butch put on a great show for the fans. We were consistently up front this weekend and look forward to showcasing more of that spirit as we head to round five at our home track at Lime Rock on July 12."
B-K Motorsports
B-K Motorsports Enjoys Strong Run in Salt Lake City
Tooele, Utah- After coming off back-to-back races on the streets of St. Petersburg and Long Beach, B-K Motorsports continued its streak of top-10 overall finishes Sunday in the American Le Mans Series Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix presented by The Grand and Little America Hotels. Drivers Ben Devlin and Gerardo Bonilla steered the No. 8 BP Lola B07/46 Mazda LMP2 car to a ninth place finish overall, eighth in the highly competitive LMP2 class.
The new 3.048-mile outer course at Miller Motorsports Park provided a challenge to all competitors, and B-K Motorsports' Yokohama-shod Lola prototype adapted well to the high-speed layout. Devlin started the two-hour, 45-minute race in ninth overall and settled into a solid pace early on. The team elected to pit Devlin during the first caution with 20 minutes complete for four fresh Yokohama tires and fuel. He rejoined and moved up to 6th, battling with the Penske Racing Porsche RS Spyder of Sascha Maassen as well as both Dyson Racing Porsches.
"We knew our race pace was going to be a bit better than our qualifying place," Devlin said. "We had a great start but got pinched and boxed in, so I couldn't go out like last year. I was stuck on the outside. We played it clean and stayed out of trouble. We had a good battle with some of the Dyson and Penske guys."
After slipping back a few positions, Devlin pitted on lap 47, staying in the car for a double stint and once again taking on new tires and fuel. He then made his third and final stop close to the two-hour mark, handing the car over to Bonilla for the final stint. Bonilla settled in kept the car clean and out of trouble, finishing eighth place in class.
"It was trouble-free run and a lot of fun working with the traffic and managing the tires," Bonilla said. "They gave me instructions to be nice to the tires, so it was fun to discover what was the right kind of driving for that. The Yokohamas actually got better as they went. That was the really neat thing. The more I took care of them, the better they got. Right in the middle there, we went pretty good for where we've been all weekend. It was a lot of fun."
John Doonan, Manager, Motorsports Team Development for Mazda, was encouraged by the steady progress made by the B-K Motorsports all weekend. The Bob Bach-owned team overcame minor issues on Saturday and in the morning warm-up to have a trouble-free run in the race.
"It was a tough weekend for us," Doonan said. "This place is awful tough; not only the surface but also the temperatures. There was some early attrition. We were happy to keep it clean. Ben drove a great first two-hour stint. We're proud of that. Now we have a little time off to regroup and get everything ready for Lime Rock. Everybody at Mazda, BP, Yokohama are pretty excited."
The team especially benefited from the turbocharged Mazda MZR-R engine in the high altitude. Every lap, Devlin and Bonilla were able to power their way down the 3500-foot front straight, passing other cars with ease.
"We came back here in the altitude and did really good with the Mazda engine," Devlin added. "It really did do justice here to gain four or five car lengths every time. It felt comfortable with great power. The car was very strong and consistent as well. The Yokohamas stayed consistent throughout."
"We still have a lot of work to do but all of our partners are working really, really hard to make it an even faster package," Bonilla said of the upcoming races. "It just shows that we're making steady progress with a reliable car and that motivates everyone to keep working to get stronger throughout the season."
B-K Motorsports and Yokohama continued its promotion of the film Speed Racer in the Utah Grand Prix as the team's Lola car carried Speed Racer logos. Bonilla, Devlin and team members also wore Speed Racer-designed shirts and driving suits.
With four races now in the books, the Series takes its traditional June break, reconvening at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Conn. on July 11-12 for the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix. The scenic 1.54-mile, eight-turn circuit should prove to be a fan and driver favorite, as the facility has undergone major renovations since last year.