American Le Mans Series at Long Beach

April 16-17, 2010, Long Beach, CA. The American Le Mans Series hit the streets of Long Beach this past weekend with it's largest field in more than 15 years! The race featured all the famous marquees with Porsche, BMW, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Jaguar, Ford and Mazda bringing out they're best. In typical Southern California sunshine the race itself proved to be an awesome titanic battle from start to finish, with the overall result still fought over until half way through the last lap of the race. And that was only one part of the story as the race featured 4 different classes of cars, each fighting over they're individual class battles.

In the rejuvenated GT class it was a constantly changing battle between Porsche, Ferrari, BMW and Chevrolet as each of the top contenders we're literally running nose to tail for most of the race. Right from the gun the race came to life as the #17 Falken Tire Porsche with Wolf Hensler behind the wheel made a brilliant hard passing move on the #62 Risi Ferrari 430 GT. The following laps saw the two battle for the lead with the #62 Ferrari not letting go of the #17 Falken Porsche, at times literally on the tail end of the Porsche (...and taking out some shrubbery at the "fountain carousel" to boot, while attempting to get closer to the 997). After a brilliant first half of the race, it was not to be for the #17 Porsche as a costly error during the pitstop placed them back down to 6th place. This opened the door for the eventual GT class winner, the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche, to take the lead. The #45 Porsche then had to contend with challenges from the #92 BMW M3 GT and the #3 Corvette ZR1, with the BMW and Corvette exchanging places late in the race with the Corvette taking 2nd.

The LMP class saw the pole setting 007 Aston Martin of Harold Primat and Adrian Fernandez rocket off the line and disappear off the front for much of the first part of the race. The #1 Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-01C of David Brabham and Simon Pagenaud followed in 2nd and progressively chipped away at the Aston Martin's lead as the race wore on. Then on lap 23 there was an unfortunate incident between the 2 leaders that resulted in damage to the Aston and a Stop-go penalty for the Acura for "avoidable contact". After sorting through they're deficits, the two contenders found themselves again running nose to tail for the latter part of the 1 hour event. With 6 minutes to go the 007 Aston took the lead and seemed destined for victory...only to run wide with half a lap remaining and conceeding the victory to the Highcroft Acura!

In addition to the titanic battles in LMP and GT, the LMPC and GTC classes saw many exciting battles throughout the race with the #99 Green Earth Technologies Oreca taking the LMPC class win and the #81 Mission Foods Car Amigo Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car taking the GTC win.

Next up for the ALMS Series is American Le Mans Series Monterey presented by Patron taking place on May 20-22 at the famed Laguna Seca Raceway.

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