Patrick Long and his teammates Colin Braun and Michael Christensen finished P8 at Petit Le Mans today, the final ALMS event, and one that Patrick has won twice before. Long was disappointed in the day the CORE autosport team had, but gratified that their first season in GT went as well as it did.
“If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that we were going take two podiums in this day and age of GT competition coming in mid-season, I would have taken those results any day. We have to be proud of what we accomplished. There were some hard days at the office, this being one of them, but we progressed quicker than I could have imagined and it was great to be a part of it,” he said.
“The mixed bag of wet and dry track was really challenging today. I had some close calls in the night stint. At one point, a prototype came flying back on the track after going off and I got pickup on my tires avoiding it. Then I was right in the middle of the GT battle and I ended up getting into the No. 3 Corvette. I cringe knowing they were going for a championship. It wasn’t intentional. We tried a lot of different tire compounds and combinations, but in the end it wasn’t our day,” said Long.
Next up for Patrick is his debut in the SCORE Baja 1000 in mid-November, then an offseason of preparation for the 2014 season.