Patrick Long, driving the #45 Flying Lizard Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, had a strong result at Virginia International Raceway, in the American Le Mans Series’ inaugural visit to the track Paul Newman famously called, “Heaven on Earth.” Starting from 5th position, Long’s teammate Jörg Bergmeister managed to avoid trouble at the start of the race, when numerous cars compacted together into turn one. At the end of lap one, Bergmeister had gained two positions, and he and Long would jockey back and forth with Corvettes, BMWs and Ferraris for the duration of the four-hour race, going on to claim their fourth podium finish of the season.
Long said, “In the No. 45 we had some bad luck early on with the yellow flag, but fought back to finish second. This podium gives us some more momentum going into Petit Le Mans. We’ve fought so hard in the second half of the season to regain the ground we lost early on and have pushed every weekend for as many points as possible. I’m looking forward to continuing this trend next month at Petit. We can be happy with second place. After the safety car phase which came at a very inopportune moment for us, we were able to fight our way up from twelfth place. After all the problems we’ve experienced this year it would be simply fantastic to conclude the season on the Road Atlanta circuit in second.”