Kristensen, Capello win American Le Mans at Road America

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. The AP reported that Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello came back from two in-race penalties to win the American Le Mans Series Road America 500 sports car race Sunday at Road America.

Denmarks Kristensen and Italy's Capello scored a 32-second win in their Audi R8 Prototype over the Audi driven by Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro.

Johnny Herbert and Stefan Johansson finished third, giving Audi a sweep of the top three positions.

Capello, who drove the second half of the race, received a stop-and-go penalty for passing before the green on a restart and a second penalty for passing during a yellow flag.

The top two finishers battled side-by-side on several occasions during the event, but Kristensen and Capello led the final hour of the race after Biela and Pirro had to pit because of a cut tire.

"Emanuele and I raced very hard during the early part of the race," Kristensen said. "There were a few times when a phone book from a very small city wouldn't have fit between our cars."

Kelly Collins and Andy Pilgrim drove a Chevrolet Corvette C5-R to a one-lap win in the GTS class, snapping the three-race winning streak of fellow Corvette drivers Ron Fellows and Johnny O'Connell, who finished second.

Germans Timo Bernhard and Jorg Bergmeister took their first American Le Mans Series wins in the GT class, driving a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Bergmeister passed Sascha Maassen for the lead on the next-to-last lap of the event.

Ben Devlin, Larry Oberto and Peter MacLeod won the LMP 675 class for smaller Prototypes by just over a minute in a Lola B2K40-Ford.