Road America Featured Big Thrills For Road Racing Fans

With the American LeMans Series Powered by eStar having the seventh round at picturesque Road America, the fans got treated to one of the most memorable victories in recent memory.

With young Jonny Cocker driving the wheels off the car, Cocker thrilled the crowd to take the victory away from the fuel conserving Muscle Milk Porsche Spyder. When Klaus Graf lifted for lapped traffic, the young lad passed Graft to take the win. It was a great battle between the Highcroft, Dyson and Drayson teams with Jonny going from fourth to first in the last two laps. They had the speed all weekend with Drayson Lola getting the pole. “I got lucky in traffic and then the chance was there so I took it” Cocker said with the car sitting in pole position at the fan friendly open grid before the race. “We’ve got the car and I feel confident.” The Muscle Milk Porsche Spyder fell short and you tell by just looking at anguished Greg Pickett, owner of the Muscle Milk Spyder still healing from a broken back in a scary practice crash at Mid-Ohio it was a tough deal. The Pickett team worked very hard to get the car back together for this race, which Porsche actually flew a new tub from Germany and brought in Timo Bernard the 24-Hour LeMans winner to take Greg’s place. Timo was very happy to be there and really he still was on cloud 9 from his well earned LeMans win. Timo said it was the greatest moment in his racing career-the super bowl of racing and that’s what you work for your whole life to win that race. He was happy to be back in a Porsche Spyder and be back at Road America one of his favorite tracks.

The fans were also treated to a great battle in GT2 with Corvette showing some speed in qualifying and really getting into the mix with the battle for the championship with Porsche, Ferrari and BMW really heating up. This battle will go down to last race. With Risi Ferrari bringing back Mika Salo and Pierre Kaffer to help aid in the manufacturer battle. It’s tough Mika Salo said when you’re not in the car, then to race it’s very hard to keep pace and with limited test time and two drives it makes it hard. BMW really showed some great race pace and great pit strategy also to put them in the mix for the championship and with races left in the GT2 championship it is going be a great battle. Talking with Corvette driver Johnny O’Connell he said the car is really getting better and they are making some big improvements with every race and they hope to be in the winner’s circle by the end of the year. In the last year this class has really grown and the manufacturers have been a part of the growth. Good things look ahead in ALMS.

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).

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