Two Championships Decided at ALMS Monterey

The American Le Mans Series returned to Mazda Laguna Seca raceway for its penultimate race the Modspace American Le Mans Monterey, and after six hours of action worthy of history, crowned its LMP-1 and GT champions.

The LMP-1 battle between the No. 16 Dyson Racing G-Oil Lola Mazda of Chris Dyson, Guy Smith, and Jay Cochran, and the No. 6 Muscle Milk AMR Lola Aston Martin of Klaus Graf, Lucas Luhr, was resolved through luck and some tricky strategy, with the Dyson team taking top honors.

“This is a day to be savored,” said Chris Dyson in a team statement. “I am really thrilled with the team. It is a great accomplishment to have the team back on top.

“I won my first championship in 2003 but think I was too young to enjoy it. I thought things were going to come easily but have had the last eight years to learn the lesson that this is not something that comes around without a lot of hard work from a lot of people.”

The No. 16 Dyson Racing G-Oil Lola Mazda of Chris Dyson, Guy Smith, and Jay Cochran started from the pole, led much of the race, then lost ground late due to a spin, yet still managed to wrap up the points battle.

Both cars experienced mechanical disasters, and both crews responded brilliantly to overcome their problems.

The Dyson Lola lost an engine in morning warm-up. The crew swapped the entire engine in 88 minutes, much faster than the job supposedly could be done, to get the car onto the grid for the race.

The Muscle Milk AMR Lola lost an oil pump halfway through the race and lost fifty laps trying to get it replaced. The crew also made heroic efforts and got the car back on track, but the big AMR Lola was too far back to catch the leaders.

The Muscle Milk car was also burdened with an extremely questionably one-minute penalty when it was ruled to have spun the factory Aston Martin AMR Lola early in the race. Replays show that there was minuscule if any contact, but the car lost a lap regardless.

With 17 minutes left in the race Jay Cochran spun the Dyson Lola and lost a lap.

Chris Dyson had to ask the sister car, the No. 20 Oryx Racing Dyson Lola Mazda, to wait in the pits until the No. 16 could make up the lap it lost. After calling in the Oryx car for three stops for dubious “computer repairs” the Dyson car retook second place, earning the points it needed to defeat the Muscle Milk machine.

While the team needed to use a bit of creative strategy to win, the title, they certainly earned it: the No. 16 car led 149 laps of the 248-lap race and set fastest lap.

The Dyson team won the P-1 team championship while the Chris Dyson and Guy Smith won the driver’s championship. In addition, Mazda won the engine championship and Dunlop (used by both Dyson and RLL BMW) won the tire title.

BMW Team RLL Wins Second GT Crown

In GT, BMW unsurprisingly took its second consecutive championship, but it was a near thing. The GT contest was the an amplified version of the four-way, door-banging battle between Corvette, Ferrari, Porsche and BMW which was resolved on the final lap after six hours of high-risk passes and re-passes.

Shades of Laguna Secas past, the Flying Lizard Porsche and the Risi Ferrari went head-to-head in the final laps, with Jaime Melo in the Risi car nearly putting Jörg Bergmeister’s Porsche into the wall with two laps to go.

The Ferrari ran low on fuel exiting Turn Three, letting the Porsche pass; then, the No. 56 BMW of Dirk Mueller squeezed by on the home straight, getting enough points to seal the season championship. Ironically, the Risi Ferrari lost the championship at Petit Le Mans in 2010 when it ran out of fuel on the final lap.

BMW has been the best of the GT fields all season, winning every pole and four races—three by Hand and Mueller, one by teammates Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner.

BMW Team RLL won its second GT team title; Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller took the drivers’ honors—the second for Mueller and the first for Joey Hand. For Hand, from Sacramento, Laguna Seca is his home track, which made the win all the sweeter.

“A drivers’ championship for me, with competition level that is so strong—that’s fantastic,” Joey Hand told ALMS.com. “Dirk and I are a great team. It was great to win in front of our greatest supporters. I am excited, that’s for sure!”