Utah: Patrick Long race report

Patrick Long - 5th Place at ALMS Grand Prix of Utah
Long and Bergmeister Slowed by Leaks

Patrick Long and Jorg Bergmeister, driving the #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, endured two slow leaks in their tires during green-flag racing today, slowing the duo and contributing to a 5th-place finish in the ultra-competitive GT2 class of the American Le Mans Series. Bergmeister, who started the race in 3rd place, drove a hard first stint and handed off the car to his teammate and co-defending GT2 class champion, Patrick Long. Long climbed up to 3rd position, where he looked likely to finish, only to have a slowly leaking puncture which caused himt to pit under green with only 45 minutes left in the race, ceding his 3rd place to the Corvette team.

LBGP Pit Wall

Long said, "A lot of people that I look up to have said that championships are made on the tough days, and today was one of those days. I don't think I've ever had a race in which we had two slow punctures, but as always, the Flying Lizard boys were flawless in recovering and reacting so quickly. It says so much about the team that we were able to face that adversity and recover to finish in the top five. I think that if there would have been a yellow thrown near the end of the race it would have been a different story - the Lizards delivered us a car that was so quick and set up so well. We'll go on to Lime Rock with our heads held high. We really didn't have anything for the Ferraris on the straights, but when we look at the sector times, we could see that we were very competitive in the twisty sections. That bodes well for Lime Rock - it's so tight and twisty there, we feel like we'll be back on equal footing and continue to push forward for podiums and maintain our status as champions of the class."

-source: patricklong.com