Backstretch Motorsports

WATKINS GLEN, NY (June 7, 2008) – Scott Pruett took the lead with 45 minutes remaining and was never headed as he and Memo Rojas drove the #01 Telmex Lexus to 3.033-second victory in today’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen Rolex Sports Car Series race at Watkins Glen International.

The win is the fourth in six races for the Ganassi/Lexus team and gives both the drivers and the team a 36-point championship lead heading into the midway point of the season at Mid-Ohio. In addition, Lexus continued its domination of endurance racing with its fifth win in the last eight Grand-Am endurance events and now holds a 15-point lead in the manufacturer’s championship.

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Timo Bernhard stole the thunder from Gil de Ferran and de Ferran Motorsports at Miller Motorsports Park with a stunning pole position run for Porsche and Penske Racing in qualifying for the Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix presented by the Grand and Little America Hotels. Bernhard turned a lap of 1:31.050 (120.514 mph) in the Porsche RS Spyder he will share with Romain Dumas.

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Talk about a change of scenery. The Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix presented by the Grand and Little America Hotels could not be more of a contrast to the previous two rounds of the American Le Mans Series. Instead of tight, twisty street circuits, Miller Motorsports Park is a wide-open, extremely fast test of the abilities of both man and machine. That is certainly true in the Series’ two production-based GT classes.

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Back at the track where he and Romain Dumas started their run to the American Le Mans Series LMP2 championship a year ago, Timo Bernhard took pole position for Porsche and Penske Racing at the Tequila Patrón American Le Mans Series at Long Beach on Friday. The German Porsche factory pilot posted a lap of 1:11.330 (99.324 mph) in a competitive and record-breaking day in southern California.

Bernhard’s lap around 1.968-mile, 11-turn circuit was good enough for a 0.094-second gap over Luis Diaz in Lowe’s Fernandez Racing’s Acura ARX-01b. Bernhard, who again will team with Dumas, also broke Dario Franchitti’s track record of 1:11.838 set last season in Andretti Green Racing’s Acura.

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Audi’s Lucas Luhr passed Romain Dumas on a restart with three minutes left Saturday to give the manufacturer a victory in the Acura Sports Car Challenge of St. Petersburg presented by XM Satellite Radio, its first overall victory of 2008. Luhr teamed with Marco Werner in Audi Sport North America’s No. 2 Audi R10 TDI as the German marque won on the streets of St. Petersburg for the second straight season.

Butch Leitzinger’s spin and crash in one of the Dyson Racing Porsche RS Spyders with 12 minutes left brought out the yellow flag with Penske Racing’s Dumas in the lead. The crash also collected the Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche of Jörg Bergmeister. Dumas, who claimed LMP2 honors with Timo Bernhard in a Penske Porsche RS Spyder, took the lead from Luhr with 19 minutes to go under green.

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Marco Werner’s affinity for street circuits shone again Friday. The Audi factory driver captured the overall pole position for Saturday’s Acura Sports Car Challenge of St. Petersburg presented by XM Satellite Radio with a record run, besting Penske Racing’s Romain Dumas as Audi looked to regain its winning ways in the American Le Mans Series.

Werner’s best lap was a 1:02.825 (103.144 mph) around the 1.8-mile, 14-turn circuit on the bayfront of St. Petersburg. His time also beat Dumas’ overall pole-winning time from 2007 by 0.214 seconds in the diesel-powered Audi R10 TDI he will share with Lucas Luhr.

And it could have been even better. Werner was on pace to improve his time on the next lap before running too hard into Turn 8 and spinning the car. The R10 did stop before impacting the tire barrier so there was no damage.

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