Preview: ALMS Comes To Road America

It’s that time of the year when the preeminent sports car series American LeMans Series makes its annual trip to the premiere road course in North America, Road America. This track is most of the driver’s favorite tracks to race at because of the high speed corners and changes in elevation.

ALMS have record 34 cars entered for the race, so it is showing growth through the tough economic times the nation is currently going through. I’m pleasantly surprised at how the GT2 class has really shown the most increase and how very competitive it is between Porsche and Ferrari. The Risi Ferrari is running a second car putting factory F1 test driver Giacarlo Fisichella in and for Road America adding Mika Salo and Pierre Kaffer. This will be Mika’s second time back in and he is looking forward to coming to Road America.

The P1 class has become very competitive with different team’s taking wins. Last race the Dyson team with Chris Dyson and Guy Smith come to Road America as winners of the last race at Mid-Ohio on August 7th in their #16 Castrol Mazda Lola coupe. It was the first overall ALMS victory for Mazda, for BP Biofuel IsoButanol, for Dunlop tires and for Castrol. But I think it will be wide open this weekend and maybe John Field’s team could get their first victory? However the Dyson team updated me that the team has finished on the podium in five of their last seven races here. In addition to Marino and Butch’s LMP2 podiums in 2009 and 2008, James Weaver and Butch was third overall in 2006 with Guy Smith setting the fastest race lap. In 2005, Chris Dyson and Andy Wallace finished second overall while James was the pole winner. Butch won the pole in 2004 and in 2003, Chris and Andy finished first in LMP2 and second overall. In addition, James won the LMP2 pole and Butch had the fastest LMP2 race lap in 2003. Dyson Racing has been lap leaders in four of the past seven races. So, maybe they can win two in row?

Also looking forward to the return of the Muscle Milk Porsche Spyder at Road America after Greg Pickett’s bad crash at Mid Ohio, they’ll add to the mix of first-class cars. They have been working hard to get car back together and will be putting LeMans 24 hour winner Timo Bernard in the car and with his resume’ he’ll make them a contender.

The ALMS teams will take to the track this weekend at Road America. For tickets go to roadamerica.com. The American Le Mans Series powered by eStar take to the track Sunday at 2:05 p.m. CT, August 22 Elkhart Lake, Wis. SPEED will air the race live at 3 p.m. ET with live radio coverage available on American Le Mans Radio presented by Porsche – a production of Radio Show Limited – as well as Sirius Channel 127 and XM Channel 242. Americanlemans.com will stream Friday’s qualifying session starting at 3:10 p.m. CT. Visit the Series’ schedule page for ticket and accommodation information. Live Timing and Scoring, track schedule, entry list and much, much more will be available on Racehub at americanlemans.com.

Eddie LePine

Eddie has been involved in motorsports for over 30 years as photographer, columnist, and driver. Eddie also is now a retired racer (well, retired unless a good ride pops up).

Related Posts

• 
  Snow And More Bring GT3 Cup Experience To Rolex24
• 
  A Racing Weekend
• 
  The Last American Le Mans Race