American Le Mans Series

Flying Lizard Fifth, Seventh on GT2 Grid

Flying Lizard Motorsports qualified fifth and seventh in GT2 today for Saturday’s Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta. In the team’s No. 45 Porsche, Jon Fogarty had the fifth fastest lap time of 1:22.829 on the 2.54 mile course.

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Teammate Lonnie Pechnik qualified the team’s No. 44 Porsche seventh in class. Both cars clocked their fastest lap times so far this week. Fogarty will join Johannes van Overbeek and Darren Law in the No. 45 and Pechnik will join Seth Neiman and David Murry in the No. 44 for the 10 hour/1000 mile endurance classic.

Fogarty commented on the qualifying session, “I’m happy with our qualifying run - this is the fastest time we’ve done all week. It’s been a challenge to get the No. 45 to race setup; the crew has been working extremely hard to get to a fast car. We still have work to do to get to our ideal setup but I’m confident we’ll have a solid race car for tomorrow’s race.”

Pechnik added, “It’s a very strong GT2 field for this race. It should be an exciting contest tomorrow, and in a 10-hour race, there are a lot of factors that will come into play. I’m pretty happy with the No. 44 setup. Road Atlanta is a great track for a long race; lots of tight turns combined with high speed straights, which makes it critical to have a well-balanced car that can perform over the long race.”

Petit Le Mans will run 1000 miles or 10 hours, whichever comes first. It is a defining race in the championship chase. Johannes van Overbeek and Jon Fogarty are currently in third place for the GT2 drivers’ championship.

© 2005 Planetlemans.com.