Petersen/ White Lightning Out of 24 Hours of Le Mans - Accident Elimnates Two-Time GT2 Class Winners

Petersen/ White Lightning Out of 24 Hours of Le Mans

 Accident Eliminates Two-Time GT2 Class Winners 

LE MANS, France, June 17, 2006 – Shortly into the 11th hour of the 74th
Annual 24 Hours of Le Mans, the No. 90 Krohn/ Petersen Motorsports/ White
Lightning/ Michelin Porsche 911 GT3 RSR is finished for the event after a
single car incident on the track. The car of the two-time Le Mans winning
team owned by Michael Petersen (Las Vegas, Nev., USA) and managed by Dale
White (Bozeman, MT, USA) made hard contact in the first chicane on the
Mulsanne Straight. Jörg Bergmeister (Langenfeld, Germany) was behind the
wheel of the car when, for reasons not yet known, the car left the racing
line on the it’s 148th lap of the Circuit de la Sarthe. Bergmeister was
uninjured but reported the car “destroyed”. Bergmeister, the regular
American Le Mans Series driver for Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning
Racing, was sharing the car with Jönsson (a native of Sweden currently
living in Buford, Georgia, USA) and Tracy Krohn (Houston, Texas, USA). He
was running fifth in class at the time of the incident. The No. 90 is
currently listed ninth in class, 35th overall. 

 

Bergmeister, the most experienced of the three drivers of the No. 90, had
been turning his fastest laps of the event (in the low four minute, six
second range) and was nearing the end of his stint when the accident
occurred. He had regained one position to move into the top-five and onto
the same lap as the fourth-place car. A planned driver change to install
Jönsson for a double stint was scheduled to follow soon. Bergmeister had
started the race fourth in class.

 

Automobile Club De L’Ouest (ACO) rules dictate that a car stopped on course
must be repaired by the driver. With such substantial damage and just a
small tool kit, this would have been unlikely for the German driver to make
repairs in the best of conditions, let alone the dark with oncoming cars.
Therefore, the car did not return to pit lane.

 

This marks the first time that the Petersen/ White Lightning Porsche has
failed to finish a 24 Heures du Mans in the top two positions of its class.
It won its inaugural event in conjunction with Alex Job Racing in 2003. It
returned in 2004 and dominated the division on its way to a second win. Last
season, the team finished second, on the lead lap, closing on the winner. In
the 20 endurance sports car events around the world that the Las Vegas-based
team has entered prior to this weekend, it has won seven, taken podiums in
ten and been running at the finish 90% of the time. The team now returns to
the United States and the American Le Mans Series where they are defending
GT2 class Champions. The next round is at Lime Rock (Connecticut, USA) Park
on Saturday, July 1st. Bergmeister will be paired with 2005 Championship
co-driver, Patrick Long in that event.

 

Dale White, Entrant/ Team Manager: “Jörg had a pretty hard impact. He said
the car was destroyed. He was running some really good laps but I don’t
think that he was over pushing it. We’ll have to look at the data but Jörg
never makes mistakes like that. That’s it for us. It’s tough to say. The
race was going pretty well. We had some issues with a shock but we were
working our way back and had a lot of race to go. We’ll have a car ready in
less than two weeks in Lime Rock.”

 

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

Please visit www.Porsche.com <http://www.porsche.com/>  for more on the
Porsche’s line of products.

For more on the ALMS, please visit www.AmericanLeMans.com
<http://www.americanlemans.com/>  and for the 24 Heures Du Mans,
www.LeMans.org <http://www.lemans.org/>  

 

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

A .PDF version of this release has been attached for your convenience.

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