American Le Mans Series

Petersen/White Lighting On GT2 Front Row

Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing will start tomorrow evening’s Grand Prix of Portland (Ore.) from second on the GT2 class grid here at Portland International Raceway. The time of one minute, 12.794 seconds by Patrick Long marked the sixth time in six American Le Mans Series races that the No. 31 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR has started from the front-row of the GT2 class grid. Twice this season the Michael Petersen-owned effort has sat on the pole position for ALMS races. It is the third-time for Long to qualify the class point leading ride while teammate Jörg Bergmeister (Langenfeld, Germany) turned the laps the other three events. Bergmeister and Long have each split pole positions with the German claiming fastest lap at Sebring International Raceway at the season-opener and Long running the quick time at Lime Rock Park.

Track conditions are the primary concern for the team entering tomorrow’s two hour and 45-minute race. The 1.944-mile track has been baked under a cloudless Oregon sky making its 12-turns very slick over the course of a over one hour plus driving stint. Team manager Dale White, crew chief/ engineer Stefan Pfeiffer and Michelin Tire engineer Brian Monprode have used yesterday’s test session and today’s two practice sessions to focus on race setup to minimize the loss between pit stops. The strategy was successful enough to give the No. 31 the top spot in practice in two of the three practice/ test sessions held thus far. The Petersen/ White Lightning team will have a final warm-up at 10:45 AM (PDT) Saturday morning. The race will start at 5 PM local time, 8 PM eastern.