January 28, 2010 – Daytona Beach, FL – Patrick Long qualified the No. 67 TRG/Flying Lizard Porsche seventh in GT for this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, the season-opener for the Grand-Am Road Racing Series. Joerg Bergmeister, Johannes van Overbeek and Seth Neiman will team with Patrick in the ShoreTel/Openwave-sponsored Porsche GT3 cup car for the 24-hour endurance race, January 30-31, 2009.
Patrick commented, “We’ve been totally focused in practice on race balance setup. We decided to make some radical changes before qualifying and they didn’t pay off as we had hoped. The Mazdas clearly had the pole in hand. But with the progress we’ve made today and with tonight’s practice we’ll have a very balanced car for the race. Seventh is a respectable starting position: we’ve got a 24-hour race to win and I’m confident that our setup work will pay off this weekend.”
Patrick Long and Bergmeister return to Daytona with the goal to repeat their GT win here in 2009 (with TRG). Bergmeister has won three times at the Rolex 24: in 2009, in 2003 (GT and overall) and in 2002 (GT), all with TRG. Bergmeister was also the Grand-Am Daytona Prototype champion in 2006 (with Krohn Racing). Bergmeister and Long are Porsche factory drivers and will be co-drivers in the Flying Lizard No. 45 Porsche for the 2010 ALMS season. With Flying Lizard, the duo won the 2009 ALMS GT2 drivers’ championship.
van Overbeek, who drove with the Lizards from 2004-2009 in the ALMS, has competed seven times at the Rolex 24. Notably, in 2007 he finished third with TRG, in 2004 took the pole and second in GT (and third overall) with Seth Neiman and Mike Rockenfeller in the Flying Lizard No. 74 Porsche and finished third in GT and overall in 2003.
The No. 67 Porsche is managed by TRG, with some Lizards at the helm including Thomas Blam (chief strategist in the ALMS), Craig Watkins (chief engineer) and Tommy Sadler (crew chief and co-technical director).
The No. 67 Porsche is sponsored at the Rolex 24 at Daytona by ShoreTel, a leading provider of enterprise IP telephony solutions and Openwave, a software company delivering context-aware mediation and messaging solutions for communication service providers.
About Flying Lizard Motorsports
Flying Lizard Motorsports competes in the American Le Mans Series GT class. The team has finished in the top three in the ALMS GT2 drivers’ and team championships every year since 2004, their first year of professional competition. In 2009, the team swept all ALMS GT2 titles: Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long won the drivers’ championship in the No. 45; Flying Lizard won the team championship; Porsche won the manufacturer championship; and the Flying Lizard No. 44 Porsche won the Michelin Green X Challenge championship (new for 2009). It is the team’s second consecutive triple championship: in 2008 Joerg Bergmeister and Wolf Henzler won the ALMS GT2 drivers’ title in the No. 45; Flying Lizard won the team championship; and Porsche won the manufacturers’ title.
Flying Lizard has also competed in the 24 Heures du Mans from 2005 through 2009, finishing third in 2005, fourth in 2006, and sixth in 2008. The privateer team is based in Sonoma, California. Visit the team website at www.lizardms.com.