Long Beach: Petterson/WLR - ALMS spotlight

PETERSEN/WHITE LIGHTNING FINISHES RACE TO LONG BEACH Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing has won its first race of the weekend. The team pulled into the American Le Mans Series paddock late Thursday morning and proclaimed itself ready for ...

PETERSEN/WHITE LIGHTNING FINISHES RACE TO LONG BEACH

Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing has won its first race of the weekend. The team pulled into the American Le Mans Series paddock late Thursday morning and proclaimed itself ready for Saturday's Grand Prix of Long Beach.

"The car is ready and stickered and ready to go to scrutineering," team manager Dale White was saying Thursday. "It's amazing to see the car and the condition it is in. It's really beautiful."

Following Tomas Enge's devastating crash just days earlier in St. Petersburg, the Las Vegas-based team presented its brand new Ferrari F430 GT for technical inspections after working around the clock during the past week to get the car ready for Saturday. Not even a two-delay for parts could set the team back.

"We received the tub on Sunday and the parts shipment got delayed," White said. "It wasn't loaded and it went onto the next stop for the plane. It was in Houston for two days and we were trying to get it back to Las Vegas. They just forgot to offload our shipment, which was all the parts we needed to finish the car. We got that on Tuesday and that made it really, really tough.

"I'm so proud of the guys and they should be proud of themselves and they will be," he added. "I think there will be some tears when the car pulls out of the pit for the first time tomorrow. I know there were some tears when the car first started last night. These guys are racers and they do what it takes. We were going to the next race. A lot of people just counted us out. It was never even an option."