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| Houston Weekend Preview Notes: Petersen White Lightning |
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Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing has had a tough season by any standard. By their own standard, it has been surreal. With three races behind them they have one totaled Ferrari F430 GT, which required a completely new car be built from scratch in just three days to reach the Grand Prix of Long Beach, and one heavily damaged car at Sebring. With a high finish for the season of sixth-place, earned at Long Beach last weekend, the 2005 and 2006 American Le Mans Series GT2 Driver Championship-winning team has not finished as well as it traditionally has. However, with the drama of the rebuilds behind them, the Dale White (Bozeman, MT.) managed team has its sights set squarely on Saturday evening's Lone Star Grand Prix of Houston. Dirk Müller (a native of Germany, living in Monaco) will return to the No.31 MMPIE/PAWS/Petersen Holdings/Michelin Ferrari F430 GT, the same car he set fastest GT2 class lap in Long Beach last Saturday, to be joined by Jarek Janis (Olomouc, Czech Republic).
The 1.7-mile, 10-turn JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park in Houston is the third consecutive temporary race course of the American Le Mans Series. It comes as the first back-to-back weekend for the Series this season and returns the premier sports car racing series in the world back to its traditional two hour and 45-minute race distance. The beginning of the 12-race season has been tough for the teams as they face the grueling conditions of the 12 Hours of Sebring and then three street races in the course of just six weeks. For the two-time class winners at Le Mans, the stretch has given way to 24 hour workdays but has not broken their attention to detail or desire to win. In fact, the speed shown at Long Beach only went to increase expectations for the remainder of the year.
The Michael Petersen (Las Vegas, Nev.) owned team has been fast since taking delivery of the Ferrari F430 GT earlier this year. They have led two of the three events and started on the front row twice (Sebring and St. Petersburg). The No. 31 turned-in one fastest lap in qualifying (St. Pete) and two fastest race laps (Enge at St. Pete, Müller at Long Beach). However, events have turned the potentially good results into frustration and additional work. The Houston event, in its second year, was the beginning of a comeback from an equally unusual poor start for the Nevada-based team in 2006. Last season the Dennis Chizma (Las Vegas) led group qualified second at Houston and, despite a broken damper/shock absorber, was able to finish fourth on the bumpy, narrow facility that snakes its way through the parking lots and streets around Reliant Stadium and the Astrodome. They went on to win the GT2 Driver Championship and the IMSA Cup Championship, finishing second in the Team Championship.
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