Road Atlanta: Patrick Long preview

22 Point Lead Heading into Petit Le Mans; 30 points on offer in season finale

Patrick Long and his teammate Jorg Bergmeister head into the 2010 ALMS season finale at Road Atlanta for the Petit Le Mans, a 10 hour or 1000km endurance contest, next Saturday, Oct. 2. The duo, with four race victories and a 22 point championship lead to their credit thus far this season, can wrap up their second consecutive ALMS GT Driver's Championship if they finish 10th place or better while completing 70% as many laps as the class winner. Joining Long and Bergmeister in the #45 car will be longtime Porsche factory driver Marc Lieb, himself a winner at Petit Le Mans and 2010 LMS (Europe) GT Driver's Champion. Flying Lizard Motorsports and Porsche both hold single-point leads in the team and manufacturer's championships, respectively, so it's all still to play for in Georgia.

Long will enter a very busy stretch of races at Petit Le Mans, though that race remains his top priority. Petit will see the U.S. competition debut of the innovative Porsche GT3 R Hybrid, which will be run with infrastructure assistance from Flying Lizard Motorsports, and which Patrick will race in November in Zhuhai, China. After Petit Le Mans, Patrick will head to Australia to compete in the Australian V8 Supercars Gold Coast 600 race, then immediately head to Germany to race in the VLN at the famed Nurburgring.

Patrick said, "We're excited to be getting to Road Atlanta for the Petit Le Mans next week, and will be racing hard rather than conservatively. With Atlanta being the home for Porsche Cars North America, we always have a lot of friends and family at the track, so we're motivated to put on a good show for them. It's been such a tense championship this year, and while it's great to have a lead going into the final race, we're realistic that everyone's going to be going all-in."

Live television coverage of the 2010 Petit Le Mans will be on SPEEDTV at 11am ET on Saturday, October 2.

-source: patricklong.com