Jeff Picoult was at Mid Ohio for the ALMS and Indycar races – his first of the weekend galleries comes from the ALMS event!
The race in brief
Muscle Milk Pickett Racing completed its drive for five Saturday with a victory in the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge and sixth round of the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón. Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr won at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the second year in a row and led for 108 of 123 laps in their No. 6 Honda Performance Development ARX-03a.
The P1 driver’s championship co-leaders have not lost an ALMS race since finishing second in class at the season-opening race at Sebring in March. Saturday, Graf finished a lap ahead of Dyson Racing’s duo of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith in their No. 16 Lola-Mazda coupe.
Luhr won pole position Friday and stayed in front for the entirety of his stint. He said, however, it was no walk in the park. The differing types of tire rubber laid down on the track surface from each of the competing series over the weekend made finding grip a hard chore early in the race. Luhr said he noticed a difference after the day’s only caution period 30 minutes in.
The GT battle once again went down to the last lap with Corvette Racing’s Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin winning by 0.283 seconds in the No. 4 Corvette C6 ZR1. It was the third victory of the season for the Corvette duo, this one over the No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Long.
Gavin made the winning pass after a Flying Lizard pit stop with nearly an hour to go. But he had to contend with Bergmeister staying on the Corvette’s rear bumper for the final 20 minutes.
Level 5 Motorsports returned to winning form in P2 with a victory for Christophe Bouchut and Scott Tucker. Bouchut in the No. 055 HPD ARX-03b won by 7.153 seconds over Conquest Endurance’s Martin Plowman and David Heinemeier-Hansson. It was a reversal of the class results from two weeks ago at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park where the No. 37 Conquest Endurance Morgan-Nissan snapped Level 5’s five-race winning streak.
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Photos by Jeff Picoult, August 2012
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