American Le Mans Series

Farnbacher Loles ready for Utah challenge

© American Le Mans Series

Farnbacher Loles Racing will field seven cars in three series this weekend, with entries in the American Le Mans Series and IMSA Challenge races at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah, and in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif.

Dirk Werner of Kissenbrück, Germany, will do double duty. He’ll start with the ALMS in Utah on May 15 and 16, fly to California for the Rolex Series race on May 17, then return to Utah for the May 18 ALMS race.

“I’ll have the pleasure to drive two races in two days,” he said. “There will be enough practice in both series for me and as I drive a Porsche in both series, it’s not so difficult to adapt to the cars. And I already know both tracks. So I’m looking forward to a great weekend with a lot of racing, a little bit more flying than usual and, hopefully, some reason to celebrate afterwards.”

Marc Basseng of Leutenbach, Germany, will drive the No. 87 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR with Dirk Werner in the ALMS race. He is excited about racing on the 3.048-mile Utah road course, after street races in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Long Beach, Calif. He hopes to match the speed of the Flying Lizard Motorsports squad that leads the GT2 class team championship.

“The track looks really quick and with a lot of corners, completely different from the street tracks. I think we’ll have to find a complete new setup for this kind of track,” he noted. “I hope we can get closer to the Flying Lizards in the quali[fying] and can keep up with the race pace like we did in Long Beach.”

Werner added, “I can’t wait to drive the Porsche in Miller, as I missed Long Beach and I enjoy driving these GT2 cars so much. I’m excited to see how fast the Porsche is at this track because of the modified 2008 aero[dynamics] and to see if we can beat the Ferraris. The team showed good speed in the first races, but we missed good results. I hope we can manage to fight for a podium in Miller.”