American Le Mans Series

Alex Job seeks fourth win at Portland

Alex Job Racing is headed up Highway 101 to Portland for round six of the American Le Mans Series to be run at Portland International Raceway on July 30th. The team will be going for their fourth win in as many races.

In 2004 the infamous turn one at Portland resulted in damage to the number 23 AJR Porsche resulting in a fourth place finish. The team car driven by Romain Dumas went on to win that day from the pole. “We had a tough day their last year with damage to our car in turn one on the first lap, robbing us of some horsepower with a bent header,” said Timo Bernhard. “Romain won, so maybe we can combine our luck and get our fourth win in a row. Turn one has gone through some changes so I hope there won’t be as much contact there as in years past, especially to our car.”

Bernhard and Dumas driving their, number 23Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, remain second in the GT2 class drivers points standings, just 11 out of first place. “Last year I was on pole and won the race,” said Dumas. “The fixes to turn one should help a lot and make it a little faster through there as well. We had a good car at Infineon; it was as perfect a weekend as you can have in racing. At Portland we need to focus and make no mistakes. We could also use a little bad luck to land on the Petersen team to get us back into contention in the points.”

Randy Pobst has decided to concentrate on winning the Speed World Challenge Touring Series and will step down as teammate to Ian Baas. Long time Porsche driver Darren Law will partner Baas in the remaining races besides Petit Le Mans. Marc Lieb will rejoin the team at Petit in September.

“Randy’s first commitment is to the Mazda Touring program,” said Alex Job. “Randy is in the hunt for the Touring Series championship and he wanted to focus all of his effort on that goal. Randy is one of the best drivers I have ever had in my cars and I am sure he will race again for me in the future.”

“We were able to do some testing on Monday at Infineon after the race,” said Ian Baas. “We worked through a couple of setup options on the car; we found one much more to my liking. We found a platform closer to what I am used to, almost like open wheel. I was able to turn some fast lap times and focus on speed as opposed to working on setup. I drove at Portland last month in a 911. I like the track; it is flat and not all that technical. I am looking forward to working with Darren. Randy is a good friend and I know that he is focused on winning the touring series, I wish him luck.”