Patrick Long, one of only nine Porsche factory drivers worldwide, will get his full season underway this coming weekend at the 60th Anniversary of the Mobil One 12 Hours of Sebring. Long, a three-time American Le Mans Series (ALMS) GT class driver’s champion and 2011 Pirelli World Challenge champion, will return to the familiar auspices of the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR as his primary championship for the season, and will again team with Jörg Bergmeister of Germany. The duo have teamed to claim three ALMS GT championships together, and with a total of eight ALMS championships between them, are one of the most successful pairings in series history.
Coming off of a late-season surge in 2011 that saw Long claim his only ALMS victory of the season at Laguna Seca and then a thrilling 2nd place at Petit Le Mans, Long feels confident in the updates Porsche engineers have made to the 2012-spec 911 GT3 RSR. He said, “We had an unbelievably trying start to the 2011 season where it proved very difficult to string a perfect race weekend together, but true to form, the Flying Lizard team and the engineers from Weissach bore down and delivered at the end of the year. That work has continued through the winter, and we really like what we’ve found when we’ve tested the 2012 GT3 RSR. For sure, the competition in the ALMS GT class only increased again, and it’s going to be a dogfight all season, but we feel confident with our starting point.”
For the 2012 season, Patrick is happy to announce two new corporate partners, Entrust and PrivacyStar. They will join Porsche, Oakley, Arai Helmets and Troy Lee Designs on the roster of Patrick’s corporate partners.
Long said, “I’m really honored to represent both Entrust and PrivacyStar this year. Working with each of them last year in the Pirelli World Challenge with TruSpeed Motorsports was a great introduction to their businesses, and specifically how they both use motorsport differently as a marketing platform. It’s going to be awesome to carry them with me in all my travels and racing this season in the ALMS, World Challenge, NASCAR, Australian V8 Supercars and of course, the 24 Hours of Le Mans!”
To learn more about Patrick, visit https://www.patricklong.com
Follow Patrick on Twitter at: @PLMotorsport
Patrick’s fan group on Twitter is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PATRICK.LONG.PorscheMotorsportsFanClub/
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A special thanks to Patrick’s corporate partners:
PrivacyStar
PrivacyStar is a service for landline, VoIP and mobile phones, as well as an app for Android and Blackberry phones, that gives subscribers total control over their inbound calls and text messages. Using the My PrivacyStar feature, subscribers can approve of contacts whose calls and texts are accepted by their phones, permanently block communication from numbers they choose and report violations of the National Do Not Call Registry directly to the Federal Trade Commission and Canadian Radio-Television and Communications Commission.
To learn more, visit https://privacystar.com
Entrust
Entrust provides identity-based security solutions that empower enterprises, consumers, citizens and Web sites in more than 4,000 organizations spanning 60 countries. Entrust’s identity-based approach offers the right balance between affordability, expertise and service. With more than 125 patents granted and pending, these world-class solutions include strong authentication, fraud detection, digital certificates, SSL and PKI.
To learn more, visit https://entrust.com/
Porsche – https://www.porsche.com
Troy Lee Designs – https://www.troyleedesigns.com
Oakley – https://www.oakley.com
Arai Helmets – https://www.araihelmet.com/