Petersen/ White Lightning Stays Hungry for Race Wins Entering ALMS Laguna Finale

Petersen/ White Lightning Stays Hungry for Race Wins Entering ALMS Laguna
Finale

 

MONTEREY, Calif., Oct. 10, 2005 – Despite entering the American Le Mans
Series (ALMS) season-finale at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca with a commanding
lead in the GT2 driver championship and a six point buffer in the team
championship, Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing is focused on
winning Saturday’s race. While other teams in this position might approach
the four-hour Monterey Sports Car Championships with point management on
their minds, the Michael Petersen-owned operation is entering the
daylight-to-darkness event on a mission to win their fourth-straight ALMS
GT2 event, fifth of the season. A win here would make a sweep of ALMS
endurance races (four hours or more) for 2005 as the No. 31 Westward Ho
Casino/ MMPIE/ PAWS/ Michelin Porsche 911 GT3 RSR has been first across the
line at the season-opening Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and the most
recent event, the Petit Le Mans. The temptation to stop chasing race
victories and start running for points would be very appealing to most teams
eager to win their first title. Not so for the small, tight-knit group from
Nevada. With both titles still up for grabs, the team is going to continue
to pursue victory on the Monterey Peninsula as if hungry for their
first-ever win.

 

The Dale White-managed team has claimed one championship already; the 2005
GT2 IMSA Cup. Awarded to the highest-finishing, privateer entrant for the
season, the team clinched the title by winning the Petit Le Mans. In fact,
the team dominated the category this season winning eight of the nine event
IMSA Cups awarded thus far. They hold an insurmountable 51 point lead
entering the final race. Initially the 2005 goal of the team, the IMSA Cup
is a prestigious addition to over 20 years worth of accolades that Petersen
Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing has garnered in off-road competition
(‘99 SCORE and SNORE Truck championships, ‘98 Protruck Stadium Series
championship, ’97 SODA Unlimited 2wd Champions, ’95-’97 Baja 1000 and Baja
500 overall titles, class titles in each in ’98, 50 victories) and sports
car racing (’03 and ’04 24 Hours of Le Mans GT(2) victories, class titles at
the 12 Hours of Sebring, Petit Le Mans, the 24 At Daytona and the Six Hours
at The Glen, five ALMS race wins, three SCCA World Challenge wins and one
SCCA Trans-Am win). 23 points are available for each championship this
weekend. 

 

The team has also assisted technical partner Porsche Cars North America to a
crushing (122 point lead entering this weekend) GT2 Automobile
Manufacturer’s title with the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. By winning four times
already this season, Petersen/ White Lightning also helped Michelin’s Pilot
SX racing slick clinch the GT2 Tire Manufacturer Championship with a 79
point margin entering the season-finale.

 

The Monterey Sports Car Championships on the 2.238-mile, 11-turn Mazda
Raceway Laguna Seca can be seen on SPEED, Sunday, Oct. 16 beginning at 3 PM
(EDT). Live timing and scoring for all sessions can be viewed at
<http://www.americanlemans.com/> www.AmericanLeMans.com. 

 

 

Quotes…

Dale White, team manager: “This race is very important to us for a lot of
reasons. But, we’re going to do things just like we have all season. Winning
is the goal. So far we have been very successful in getting to where we are
by going for the wins and that is what we’re doing this weekend too. We’re
just taking every day one-day, one session, at a time. We have the best
group of guys that have ever been on this team and they are working together
better than they ever have. This has always been a pretty good track for
Mike and me so I am pretty excited about it.”

 

Jörg Bergmeister, driver: “After having already run this year at Laguna,
unfortunately with some bad luck at the end, I am really excited about
coming back and improving the result there. Definitely, Laguna is one of my
favorite tracks. It will be an interesting race. Hopefully, it will be dry
all day because the risk is very high there in the rain. I hope it is sunny
not just for drivers but the spectators. We just had a ten hour race and
this is sort of a short race again. We just need to do what we did pretty
much all year; not looking at the championship and just try to win the
race.”

 

Patrick Long, driver: “Our strategy has been the same all year and it will
be the same in Laguna. That is to continue striving for victories. The
second side of that strategy is that, if we were to take too conservative of
an approach, I don’t think it is the right thing to do. You can never write
a script and trying to manipulate the race outcome to get a certain amount
of points is to tempt fate. It has been a unique challenge battling Alex
Job, who has two race cars against ourselves who have one. But we want this
team championship more than anything. So it is about doing what we do best.
We need to be smart in traffic, meaning taking no unneeded risk. We were
proud to finish the Petit with one of the cleanest, untouched cars in the
field. Laguna is a challenging track, it’s quite narrow. So we have to go in
there as concentrated as we’ve ever been. Pit strategy and pit stops and lap
times. If that is all done we couldn’t ask for anything better. It’s a
California race, which for me, means lots of friends and family for
support.” 

 

More on Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing can be found at
<http://www.petersenmotorsports.com/> www.PetersenMotorsports.com. Learn
more about Porsche at  <http://www.porsche.com/> www.Porsche.com. 

 

### 

Digital images and complete team and driver bios available upon request.

Editors, please do not publish any contact information other than web sites.
Thank you.

 

contact: Tom Moore, Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing, 

615-778-1614 (office), 615-509-5000 (cell),  
tom@darkhorsecom.com