Acura Sports Car Challenge Of St. Petersburg Monday Notebook

Braselton, March 31, 2009: The Acura Sports Car Challenge will see a pair of Panoz Esperante GTLM's for Panoz Team PTG.

On the heels of a solid third-place GT2 podium finish to open the 2009 American Le Mans Series season, Panoz Team PTG has entered a second Panoz Esperante GTLM for the Acura Sports Car Challenge of St. Petersburg. Sebring teammates Dominik Farnbacher and Ian James will drive the lead entry with Tom Sutherland and newcomer Ryan Phinney in the second car.

Farnbacher and James ran in podium position most of the day at the season-opening 57th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida. Their Panoz Esperante survived a heated battle with a Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche after the two cars came together with less than two hours left and James defending third place.

The result marked the best finish at Sebring for the Panoz since a 2006 class victory. James climbed the podium for the first time since winning the LMP2 class at Sebring in 2005, and Farnbacher made the podium at Sebring for the first time.

Farnbacher enters St. Petersburg as the defending GT2 champion, having won last year’s race with Dirk Müller in a Ferrari F430 GT.

In the second car, Sutherland will make his second consecutive St. Petersburg start for Panoz Team PTG. He finished sixth in class last year with Tommy Milner; the pairing’s best showing was a fourth-place effort at Salt Lake City.

Phinney will make his first start in the American Le Mans Series and at the St. Petersburg street circuit. He has past experience in sports cars and is a former karting national champion.

BEING GREEN: How might the first street event for the MICHELIN® Green X® Challenge play out? IMSA consultant Doug Robinson, a key figure in the calculation of scores in the competition, gives his take.

“Sebring has longer straights and higher-speed corners which lead to more fuel consumption per mile,” Robinson said. “Smaller, lighter cars could have an advantage at St. Petersburg. A P2 Acura may finish ahead of a P1 Acura for that reason, as an example. E85 cars could see a slight advantage; it depends on fuel stops but they can probably make it on one stop. Ferraris are lighter than their GT2 competitors, so they might see an advantage.”

DEFENDING GT2 CHAMPIONS: Farnbacher and Dirk Müller will arrive at St. Petersburg as the defending GT2 champions after scoring Tafel Racing’s first Series victory in 2008 with Ferrari F430 GT. A year later, both are on different teams and in different cars.

Farnbacher, as noted above, will drive a Panoz Esperante GTLM for Panoz Team PTG. This will be the third straight year Farnbacher has driven a different type car – 2007 saw him driving a rear-engined Porsche, last season in the mid-engined Ferrari and this year will see him in the front-engined Panoz.

Müller will pilot one of the two brand new BMW M3s from BMW Rahal Letterman Racing Team, the first street race for the class challenger. He will team with Tommy Milner, coincidentally the son of PTG owner Tom Milner.

In 2008, Farnbacher and Müller won by 13 seconds over Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of Johannes van Overbeek and Patrick Pilet.

David Brabham has three street race victories in 13 starts.

ROAD WARRIORS: The Acura Sports Car Challenge of St. Petersburg marks the 14th temporary street circuit event in Series history. David Brabham is the only driver entered at Sebring who has competed in all 13 previous Series street circuit events. Has three wins to his credit – Long Beach, 2008 in LMP2; Miami, 2003 in GTS; and 2002, overall at Washington DC for Panoz.

Dyson Racing’s Butch Leitzinger will make his 11th consecutive street circuit start while Intersport Racing’s Clint Field has participated in 12 of the last 13 street races.

The next race for the American Le Mans Series is the Acura Sports Car Challenge of St. Petersburg from the St. Petersburg street circuit. The green flag is scheduled for 1:20 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 4. ABC Sports will televise the race live beginning at 1:30 p.m. Live Timing & Scoring and American Le Mans Radio can be found at the new americanlemans.com. Satellite radio subscribers can hear the race live from 1 to 3:30 p.m. ET on XM Channel 244 and Sirius Channel 126.