DRIVER NEWS
Second Straight Laguna Win...Dramatic
Nose-to-Tail Battle Into Darkness
Flying Lizard Motorsports
scored another dramatic GT victory at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca with
Patrick Long winning in class by 0.365 seconds with Jörg
Bergmeister over BMW Rahal Letterman Racing Team's Joey Hand. Long
passed Hand's BMW M3 GT on the inside of Turn 11 just as the green flag
flew on the final restart with eight minutes left. The race had been a
knock-down, drag-out fight for its entire 6 hour duration, with eight
different cars leading at one time or another - three Ferraris, two
Corvettes, two BMWs and Long's #45 Flying Lizard Motorsport Porsche 911
GT3 RSR. Long took advantage of the final restart of the race -
with three laps remaining - to make it two in a row for himself and
teammate Jörg Bergmeister.
Long, Joey Hand in the #90 BMW
and Ollie Gavin in the #4 Corvette all led in the final hour of the
race, swapping the lead back and forth in classic nose-to-tail
fashion. During the final round of pitstops, the #90 BMW stopped
early for fuel, the #4 Corvette changed tires, and the #45 Flying
Lizard stopped for a splash of fuel just prior to the final yellow
flag. Having assumed the lead in the caution period, the #90 BMW
wasn't able to hold off Long for more than a lap, as Patrick passed at
the drop of the green flag at the exit of turn 11. Long and Hand
then had an intense three-lap sprint to the finish; the final margin
was .40 of a second after six hours of racing.
Long and Bergmeister
assumed the championship lead - which they won in 2009 in a memorable
last-lap battle at Laguna Seca between Jörg and Corvette Racing's
Jan Magnussen - heading into the ALMS' traditional break for the 24
Hours of Le Mans.
Patrick said, "At the
end, I was racing against Joey (Hand) in the BMW. We've been competing
for more than 15 years - all the way back to our karting days - and I
knew he would fight me to the end. During the yellow, the team had to
make a decision - would we go for the safe finish and points or for the
win, but in the end, we got both. After the last restart, heading into
Turn 11, Joey left me three-quarters of a car width, then we went 3
wide into 11. I edged past and then it was about running and I was able
to hold on to take the win. We came from P8 and worked our way through
a very competitive field."

Long added, "The win was that
much sweeter since it was at our home track with our sponsors and
families cheering us on. It's pretty early in the year for everyone to
be racing at this level of intensity, but I think that just points to
what the rest of the season is going to be about. Today was, by far,
the most memorable race of my career. It was not only what happened in
the last few minutes but the entire race, fighting the BMWs, the
Corvettes, the Ferraris- it was healthy, hard racing and a lot of fun."
CBS Sports will broadcast the
tape-delayed broadcast of the race Saturday, May 29 at 1:30pm ET.
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