American LeMans Racing at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca - Racing Coverage

Six hours of triple digit speeds wasn't the only story this past weekend on the Monterey Peninsula. Anticipating warmer weather this May vs. past races in October, it was still a little cold and windy. A hardcore race fan may watch the entire 6-hour race, but there is so much more going on the entire weekend. Be sure to check out Part 2 regarding all the other events taking place.

RACE RESULTS:

Most notable was the Highcroft Racing Acura HPD ARX-01C finishing in first place after starting at the back of the grid. It turned it's fastest time on lap 5 with a 1:14.441. Witnessing this lap in the grandstands at turn 4, my buddy and I looked at each other as the car flew by us, knowing were watching something special. This is the fastest turn and Acura states up to 131mph!

The Acura battled the Mazda powered Lola B09 86 throughout the race, which interestingly qualified 2 seconds quicker. Unfortunately the oil filter blew with only 24 minutes remaining, causing the Lola to withdraw, leaving the Acura to finish 7 laps ahead of the non-factory Porsche RS Spyder.

In the LMPC class featuring slightly slower prototypes saw the Oreca FLM 09 taking 3rd overall, only one lap ahead of the Oreca FLM 09 featuring local Los Gatos resident Tom Sutherland, son of accomplished racer Rick Sutherland. Attrition meant the remaining prototype cars to be finished before the end of the race.

The GT class featuring the more identifiable Porsches, Ferraris, Corvettes and a Jaguar was the source of more consistent battles with Patrick Long in the Porsche 911 RSR passing Joey Hand in the Rahal/Letterman (yes, that Letterman) BMW M3 GT and then finally winning by less than four-tenths of a second! Roughly 3 seconds behind was the Corvette "ZR1" finishing 3rd, cleanly this time vs. last October.

I put "ZR1" in quotes because the body is based on the current Corvette ZR1 but the powertrain is a 5.3 liter normally aspirated V-8, not a supercharged 6.2 liter. However, it still sounds as thunderous as the big 427s from the currently retired GT1 class.

The Jaguar looked sharp but unfortunately finished last due to a mechanical problem. The best sounding car was the Ford GT which just ripped and snarled down the track but just was competitive. Sadly, the field seemed smaller this year when previous series competitors such as the Ford powered Panoz and the Dodge Viper didn't show.

In the GTC class, a clever way to boost car count, the Porsche GT3 Cup cars had some great racing with Black Swan Racing taking their first win. These cars, also on slicks, turn 1:27s and 1:28s which now makes them faster than the Speed GT series which was greatly missed this weekend due to a conflict in race schedules.

Unfortunately there were 10 caution periods due to cars going off track for a total of 42 laps of 237 completed by the winning Acura. Even though improvements have been made to the track, watching other events suggests the runoff area is just too short for less restrictive. Another change at the track is a 3-sided big screen on top of the scoring tower, a nice addition to see action you normally miss from various vantage points.

See part 2 for further highlights of the event weekend.

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Links:

Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca

American LeMans Series results page

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