The Modspace American Le Mans Monterey from Laguna Seca Saturday offered all this and more; hard-fought battles in every class playing out throughout the race, from the green flag until the final few hundred yards of the finishing straight in the final seconds of the race.
GT and P-1 champions were crowned; Aston Martin got its first P1 win, Flying Lizard its first of the season. Through six hours of racing there weren’t two laps without some kind of exciting action.
Aston Martin Racing finally got a win with its aging #007 AMR Lola Aston Martin; Adrian Fernandez, Harold Primat, and Stefan Mucke brought the V12-engined coupe home a lap ahead of the competition, taking the lead early in the race, trailing for most of the middle, than closing with a rush to the front while the competition broke or spun are waited in the pits (more on that later.)
“It was very close at the beginning, but in a 6 hour race you have to keep it clean the whole time,” Mucke told Americanlemans.com.” The car was really good when I went in for the last 1.5 stints.
“I was surprised the temperature helped us a little bit. The car started to suddenly work. We had an advantage passing other cars, not getting a lot of pickup. But the temperature and conditions really suited the car and made it really fast.”
Primat and Fernandez had only one previous race in the AMR Lola, after driving the now-defunct AMR-1. “It has been a difficult year for all of us with the new car at Aston Martin,” he said.
“It was nice to come back with the older car and know its reliable. The first day we were not really competitive and we made some changes. For the morale of the team it was great to come back with this.
“The racing in the ALMS right now is fantastic racing. The Mazdas and the Muscle Milk car was really competitive and I think we were all really pushing close up until the last 30 minutes or so.”
Battles Begin
Mucke got second on lap three, then passed Dyson for the lead on lap eight. The Dyson crew had swapped the car’s engine an hour-and-a-half before the race; possibly a few things needed adjusting, because Dyson started dropping places rapidly.
On lap 16 Butch Leitzinger showed his talent, dodging inside a GTC car while Mucke went the long way around, giving the Oryx into first place.
Mucke then started a 25-lap battle with Lucas Luhr in the Muscle Milk AMR Lola-Aston Martin. The two touched and Mucke spun on lap 24. The on lap 52 Mucke, in third ahead of Luhr, got hung up behind the Risi Ferrari on the uphill approach to the Corkscrew. Mucke slowed and Luhr charged, entering the Corkscrew inched behind the factory Aston.
In any case, the Muscle Milk car was assessed a one-minute penalty, costing the team a lap.
The next lap saw the first full-course caution as the #11 JDX GTC Porsche went off. After pit stops, Chris Dyson retook the lead.
Another Cup car went off on lap 79 bringing out another FCY. After pit stops this time, Harold Primat, who had taken over the factory Aston from Stefan Mucke, came out in the lead, followed by Humaid Al Masaood int her Oryx and Guy Smith in the Dyson.
Smith wasted no time getting back to the front: on the lap 86 restart, he passed Al Masaood in T4 and then Primat in T7, going from first to third in three corners—the Dyson crew had obviously got the car working right, and Smith was getting all of it.
Fate Crushes Muscle Milk
Graf and Luhr had made up their lost lap and were closing on the race lead; they were pushing hard to close the points gap to Dyson, hoping to take the championship fight to Petit le Mans, where 30 points were available.
The broken oil pump broke their chances. After their mechanical failure at Sebring which cost them 30 points, a major mechanical failure at the 25-point Laguna Seca endure was just too much to make up.
The Muscle Milk crew didn’t surrender; they worked on the hot engine, tearing it down and rebuilding it in time to rejoin and finish the necessary 70 percent of the race to be scored. Even so, the points they earned were just not enough to keep Dyson Racing from closing out the championship.
Controversial Strategy
Mucke cut the lead to three seconds in five laps, and in another five laps took the lead just past the Corkscrew. By this time Kane had cut his gap to 27 seconds.
On lap 234, Jay Cochran contacted a GTC Porsche trying to squeeze past, puncturing the Lola’s left rear tire. He went back out but spun in the Corkscrew on cold tires and stalled, bringing out a full-course caution.
Here is where things get ugly; The Dydon team, wanting to wrap up the championship at Laguna Seca, asked the #20 Oryx Dyson car to pit long enough to let Cochran in the #16 Dyson car get by.
Rob and Chris Dyson knew that a DNF at Petit Le Mans, the last race of the season, coupled with a class win by the Muscle Milk Aston, would give Muscle Milk the win; the two teams would be tied in points but Muscle Milk had more wins, which would break the tie in their favor.
When the race went green again on lap 240, Steven Kane in the Oryx was a lap behind the factory Aston and a lap ahead of the Dyson Lola.
Two laps later the Oryx came back into the pits, ostensibly to repair the computer. “Computer repairs” took two laps—just long enough for Jay Cochran to pass the Oryx.
The #16 Dyson Lola Mazda finished three laps down—but since the Aston Martin AMR-Lola is an ILMC car, not an ALMS car, it was not eligible for points
Chris Dyson and Guy Smith won the 2011 American Le Mans Series LMP-1 championship. Hopefully this will help them raise sponsorship dollars for the 2012 season. The way in which they won it was not optimal, but … racing is a team sport, and it is in no way unusual that a sister car—in this case, the #20 Oryx Dyson Lola—be asked to take on for the team.
For Dyson, the win means a championship after years of struggling. For Oryx, Steven Kane and Huamid Al Masaood know that they might have taken second but had no chance at a win anyway. They will likely be back to contest the full 2012 season, and might win a championship of their own.
For Adrian Fernandez, Harold Primat, and Stefan Mucke, this was their first win in the Aston Martin, and the first ALMS win for Primat and Mucke.
The American Le Mans Series ends its season at Petit Le Mans, a ten-hour or 1000-mile endurance race run with the International Le Mans Cup series. The field will include all the best European as well as North American teams; Audi and Peugeot, Rebellion and Oak, plus Muscle Milk, Dyson, and Oryx will compete for the overall win.
Petit Le Mans starts at 11:30 a.m. ET on October 1 at the Road Atlanta racetrack in Braselton, Ga. Tickets are available through the Road Atlanta website or via phone at 770.967.6143, or 1.800.849.RACE. Tickets will also be available at the gate on race day.
