Butch Leitzinger led today’s race and Guy Smith and Chris Dyson ran third in class during three separate stints of the four-hour race into darkness. The #16 car of Leitzinger and Wallace finished sixth in class after loosing part of the front nose and resultant downforce from coming together with Stefan Johansson in the #9 Acura. Explained Leitzinger, “Stefan and the Audi got in it pretty hard going up the front straight and it damaged Stefan’s car quite a bit because he was starting to drop back. I got beside him going toward the bridge but than figured I wasn’t far enough along to make the pass and got in behind him. I think he might have thought I was still there beside him and he braked very hard and with no where to go, I ran into the back of him.”

The #20 Thetford/Norcold entry of Dyson and Smith finished fifth in class. “It had gotten quite cold at the end and we got some pick-up on the tires and the grip had fallen off,” observed Dyson. “In clear running we were matching everyone out there. I lost some time in traffic unfortunately and that kept me from challenging the Penske cars at the end and really attacking the Aucuras. We unlocked a big amount of performance this weekend. Our hats off to Porsche for producing such an engineering marvel this year. We ran the whole season without a single mechanical DNF.

“But the true heroes of the season are the people of Dyson Racing. The hours they put in, the spirit they show race in and race out, and their perseverance are the cornerstones of our team. Their dedication makes our sport possible.”

Rob Dyson on the 2007 Season:

“In several ways, this year was similar to what we went though last year with a new engine and new car. Understanding the dynamics of a new car and getting the techniques behind any race car is a challenge. The guys have done a great job of unlocking its secrets this year. We have tremendous support from Porsche that has helped us a lot. I would give us a B+ with a definite A+ for effort.”

Highlights of the Year:

“We have had some good podiums this year. Detroit was terrific. If Chris had not had his transmission problem, we would have come home second and third, but we did get a podium for Butch and Andy. Petit Le Mans was a good job. Chris and Guy finished second in class and third overall. Butch had his wiring loom problem and lost eleven or twelve laps and that was the margin at the end of the race. Andy and Butch had podiums at Salt Lake and Long Beach and Long Beach was special with it being an all Porsche podium.”

Off-Season Plans:

“We will be doing more testing than normal this off-season. We have to advance up the learning curve faster and sooner and the only way to do that is to run the cars. Next year will be the first time in three years that we will have the same car that we started the prior season with. We received the Porsches this year two weeks before the Sebring winter test and did not get a chance to test them again until four races into the season. We had a good test at Salt Lake prior to the race and that was a big help. We did not get a chance to really start digging into these cars until that break.”

Next Year:

“I am optimistic about next year. It is going to be very tough, but I have every reason to believe that we will be racing with the same level of support from Porsche as this year, and I am looking forward to it. Hopefully at the end of the day we will be competing for class victories and going for overall race wins.”

State of the Series:

“The ALMS continues to improve. The series is much more competitive with more solid teams and great drivers. They have done a good job of attracting the manufactures and they in turn have good teams running their efforts. The level of competition continues to get stronger. When you have racing where you have eight or ten cars capable of winning, that is as tough as you are going to find in any race series.”

“Today’s qualifying speaks to the strength of the series and the depth of the field,” remarked Chris Dyson. “Everyone runs hard and the team has made substantial progress since our first race with the Porsches at the 12 Hours of Sebring seven months ago. It is an amazing car and having Porsche’s support helps to quicken the learning process.”

“The car is much different from the beginning of the year,” Andy Wallace agreed. “We can attack a corner almost in one whereas at the beginning of the season, the car sent different messages through the corner. So you would always leave a little in reserve, but now you can drive the car harder and closer to the limit more of the time. For me, that has made it a much easier car to drive.”

“We have greatly improved the car over the year, both from how to set up the car and adjusting our driving styles to suit the car,” added Guy Smith. “We found it slightly more of a challenge than we anticipated, but nothing ever comes easy in racing. The competition in LMP2 has been exceptional. We have taken on some of the best teams and best drivers in the world and we should be happy with our performance. We look forward to ending this season on a high note for as of the end of the race tomorrow evening, the next season starts.”

Tomorrow’s four-hour race is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. PT. SPEED Channel will air the race live from 5:30 to 10 p.m. ET. Live coverage from ALMS Radio and IMSA Live Timing and Scoring will be available at www.americanlemans.com.Press Contact: Brian Wagner (760) 215-9086 (wagnerindy@sbcglobal.net)

MONTEREY, CA October 19, 2007 – It was the last qualifying session of the 2007 American Le Mans season for the race that concludes the 50th anniversary season of Laguna Seca. It could not have been a stronger session. All four classes set qualifying records for Saturday’s Monterey Sports Car Challenge and the top thirteen were under the track’s LMP1 qualifying record. Guy Smith qualified the #20 Porsche RS Spyder sixth in class, two seconds under the LMP2 record and Andy Wallace was four tenths behind in seventh place.

“Today’s qualifying speaks to the strength of the series and the depth of the field,” remarked Chris Dyson. “Everyone runs hard and the team has made substantial progress since our first race with the Porsches at the 12 Hours of Sebring seven months ago. It is an amazing car and having Porsche’s support helps to quicken the learning process.”

“The car is much different from the beginning of the year,” Andy Wallace agreed. “We can attack a corner almost in one whereas at the beginning of the season, the car sent different messages through the corner. So you would always leave a little in reserve, but now you can drive the car harder and closer to the limit more of the time. For me, that has made it a much easier car to drive.”

“We have greatly improved the car over the year, both from how to set up the car and adjusting our driving styles to suit the car,” added Guy Smith. “We found it slightly more of a challenge than we anticipated, but nothing ever comes easy in racing. The competition in LMP2 has been exceptional. We have taken on some of the best teams and best drivers in the world and we should be happy with our performance. We look forward to ending this season on a high note for as of the end of the race tomorrow evening, the next season starts.”

Tomorrow’s four-hour race is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. PT. SPEED Channel will air the race live from 5:30 to 10 p.m. ET. Live coverage from ALMS Radio and IMSA Live Timing and Scoring will be available at www.americanlemans.com.

“This is a great result for the team,” noted Chris Dyson. “Although we did not have the fastest car out there today, it was consistent and Guy and I could push hard for the entire race. We stuck to our game plan, which was to keep out of trouble and pick the other guys off. The crew executed flawlessly in the pit stops, and our strategy and pace put us in a position where we were able to capitalize. The race result speaks volumes for our strong teamwork today.”

Even by the standards of endurance races which have become virtual sprint races, this tenth running of the Petit Le Mans was notably aggressive. There were nine yellows and it took a third of the race for things to settle down. “It was pretty chaotic out there,” commented Smith. “I don’t know what it was about this race – it was an endurance race, but everyone was pushing extremely hard the whole race.”

While the #20 Porsche RS Spyder of Dyson and Smith enjoyed a relatively trouble-free run and improved ten spots from their starting position, the sister #16 Thetford/Norcold of Andy Lally, Butch Leitzinger and Andy Wallace was less fortunate. The #16 car developed a misfire nine laps into the race and lost eleven laps replacing the plug wire loom. The misfire returned again at the eight hour mark, but the team decided to soldier on to the end. “I was real happy with the handling of the car in the race,” remarked Leitzinger. “In qualifying and even in warm-up we had understeer but during the race, the car ran very well with the track coming to us as we anticipated.”
,br> “We had Andy Lally join us at Sebring this year and he did another great job for us this weekend driving with Butch and Andy, setting some of the fastest laps of the car in the race,” said team principal Rob Dyson.
Lally relished the opportunity. “Butch and Andy and the crew did a great job of setting the car up and it was awesome to drive,” he said. “I loved the grip we had and this place is an amazing track to drive in a car this fast.” The dictionary defines endurance as “the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity.”

The penultimate round of the American Le Mans Series was a much harder fought endurance race than normal, which makes the results that much more of a moral victory.

“The track was very green from all the rain we had since yesterday and there was virtually no rubber down,” noted Leitzinger. “That changed the conditons enough that we had quite a bit more understeer than we had yesterday. But the track will rubber up throughout the race. We may make some small changes, but we will be careful not to chase the track because the track will come to us.”

Chris Dyson noted that “we tested here two weeks ago. It was important for us to understand the surface changes with the repaving. We built a data base on tire wear and damper and aerodynamic settings that served us well this week. The key here is to concentrate on getting a drivable car for a thousand miles.”

And make no mistake, this is a classic endurance race. James Weaver once computed that the amount of time you are full throttle at Road Atlanta is a higher percentage that even at Le Mans. Both Andy Wallace and Butch Leitzinger were in the first Petit Le Mans and have more experience here than virtually any one else in the field. Endurance specialist Andy Lally joins Wallace and Leitzinger for this race and Chris Dyson has finished off the podium only once in the past four years including a runner up finish in 2005 with Guy Smith. A good combination to have for a long road trip in the red clay hills of Georgia.

The 10th running of Petit Le Mans, the annual 1,000-mile/10-hour endurance classic at Road Atlanta, is set for 11:15 a.m. ET on Saturday, October 6. SPEED will broadcast live from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 6:30 to 10 p.m. ALMS Radio and IMSA’s Live Timing and Scoring will be available at americanlemans.com.

The carbon fiber detritus at the first turn was a harbinger for a race of close contact around the Belle Isle circuit. “The Highcroft (Acura) hit me hard in the rear at the start,” observed Smith. “It knocked a chunk of the rear body work off and it really damaged the rear wheel quite badly.” The first of four yellows came out on the nineteenth lap and the team split pit strategies and kept the #20 car out. “That was a smart move and when it went green and we were able to stay in the lead and run well,” said Smith. “It was a very eventful stint and it was fun to run at the sharp end.”

Chris Dyson got in the #20 car on lap 58 of the 106 lap race and was running third with twenty minutes to go when the transmission briefly stuck between third and fourth gear. “I was taking the last corner onto the pit straight in fourth gear. When I changed up that lap, the gear didn’t select fourth. I lost drive and we lost four spots in a flash,” said Dyson. “Of course I’m a bit frustrated, because without that one problem, there’s no doubt that we would have finished second and had two cars on the podium today. But this was a weekend that showcased our competitiveness, and we were in the hunt all day. Our second half has been very strong this year and it’s good momentum to carry into the Petit Le Mans.”

“Chris was ahead of me and doing a fantastic job of holding the Audi off,” noted Leitzinger. “This race was absolutely frantic from the first lap with great scraps and a great finish.”

“Our congratulations to Porsche for clinching both championships,” remarked Rob Dyson. “It is interesting – when you go to their Stuttgart museum and look at their race cars of the ‘50’s and 60’s, you see the same attention to detail and the same engineering DNA that you see in our Spyders. That is why some manufactures always end up on top: they have an uninterrupted history of knowing what it takes to win.”

“It was an exciting qualifying and it is nice to be starting up front,” commented Smith. “The main thing is that we are back to where we think we should be and the car is good for the race. I think we actually have a better race car than the Penskes. Chris (Dyson) and I are looking forward to tomorrow – these street courses always make for thrilling racing.”

Andy Wallace’s qualifying was almost two seconds faster than the times he and Butch Leitzinger turned in the morning practice sessions. “The main thing with leaning a new track is finding where the grippy bits are,” observed Wallace. “On a track like this, there are a lot of concrete strips and camber changes so the obvious line through the corner is not always the right line and you have to find that.” Teammate Butch Leitzinger noted that “the course is very good with a nice mixture of corners. It is still very green without much rubber on it so I expect the fastest lap in the race will be quicker than qualifying.”

Belle Isle hosted CART races from 1992 – 2001. This weekend is a double header with the ALMS and the IRL. “Roger (Penske) has done a first rate job in putting this event together,” Chris Dyson said. “It is a faster street track than it looks. We have taken some lessons we learned from Houston and Lime Rock and put them into a good package here. With only one day of running on a new track, the team has given us very good cars.”

The top Dyson finishers of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith ran as high as third in class, and provided fans and TV viewers with a showcase of determined driving to the last turn of the race. Smith pressured Adrian Fernandez’s Acura for twenty laps, finally passing him spectacularly on the outside of turn two on lap 79 of the 125 lap race. Smith hounded Ben Devlin for the last twenty-five minutes and ended up having contact with Fernandez when Devlin went wide at turn nine. “Adrian and I came together as we were racing to the flag and I crossed the finish line crossed up, but it was good racing fun,” said Smith.

Andy Wallace and Butch Leitzinger in the #16 Porsche RS Spyder missed out on a potential class podium with confusion during the second of the event’s two cautions. “There was a muddle with the pace car picking up the race leader,” said Wallace. “And than IMSA said that pits are open and three cars – the two Penske (Porsches) and Fernandez pitted and than right after they stopped, they said no, the pits are closed and so we all had to go around again. I came in but could not pull into my pit cleanly because the car behind us was partly into our pit box. The fuel hose did not reach and we lost too much time reangling the car.” This mishap cost the 16 car a lap to the P2 leaders that they would later regain, but the loss in track position kept them from contending at the end.

“We hoped for a better race result, but we leave here in a stronger position in the team championship and we are more competitive for the run to the season’s end,” Chris Dyson said afterwards.

The American Le Mans series moves across the Great Lakes for the tenth of the twelve-race series next weekend at the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix on Saturday, September 1.

Mosport is a second home track for the Thetford/Norcold crew, close to the team’s home base in Poughkeepsie, NY. “I think we have a very good car for the race tomorrow,” said Dyson. “We didn’t get the best out of the car in qualifying, but if you look at our form in practice and the past few races, we have been very strong. I expect tomorrow to be a good day for the team.”

The team started from pole and finished second and third last year. Dyson and Guy Smith came in second, less than three seconds behind the winner with Smith setting the fastest race lap. The sister car of Leitzinger and James Weaver was third. Smith set fastest lap last year and Dyson drivers have set fastest race laps the past four years. The team won in 2004 and 2005 and Dyson and Andy Wallace won the LMP2 class in 2003. With last year’s pole, Dyson drivers have thirteen combined poles here. James Weaver’s record pole of 2003 stood until today.

“All of the Dyson drivers and the team enjoy this track and we have a good amount of test miles here with a good book of data,” said Leitzinger. “The track will get quicker tomorrow the more we run and it will be a competitive race.”

The race tomorrow will start at 3 p.m. ET, and will be broadcast live on SPEED. American Le Mans Radio and IMSA`s Live Timing and Scoring will be available at americanlemans.com.

Guy Smith started the #20 car and moved up four positions and was third an hour into the race. “At the start, I wanted to get past the Acuras,” said Smith. “I managed to get by Marino Franchitti in the # 26 Acura. I went by David Braham in the # 9 Acura on the inside at turn eight, and Andy (Wallace) was having handling issues and we were able to get past the sixteen.” “The rear tires overpressured and we had to run a more conservative pace in the beginning,” noted Wallace. “We put on new tires at our first stop and they were fine for the rest of the race.”

An hour and a half into the race, the yellow flag was thrown for hard rain and for the next hour the race was run under yellow. The weather cooperated for the race’s last hour and half and it became a sprint to the finish. The team’s strategy of having Leitzinger stretch his fuel mileage at the end came very close to paying off, but five minutes from the end, the team had to bring Leitzinger in for a three second splash of fuel.

“We finished ahead of all but one of the Acuras,” said Chris Dyson. “It was a good race and the cars ran well. It started out as an endurance run and ended up a sprint race after the track started drying out, with our cars moving up the field right to the end. The car’s speed in the dry was quite strong and we were matching the leaders’ times, so I’m pretty confident for Mosport. This was our eighth race with the Porsches and our comfort level and competitiveness increases with each race.”

The American Le Mans series travels across the border for the ninth race of the season in Mosport Ontario, Canada on August 26.

Watkins Glen, NY (August 10, 2007) … The Crown Royal 200 at The Glen is the only “sprint race” on the 2007 Grand-Am Rolex Series schedule. “Sprint” accurately described the style that Rob Dyson and Andy Lally used to post a 13th-place finish in the two-hour event on Friday evening.

The race marked the first time that Rob Dyson and Andy Lally have teamed in a Rolex Series Daytona Prototype event, and the first DP race for Lally in the 2007 season. Lally, the leader in the Rolex Series GT Class, with five wins in 2007, was subbing for Chris Dyson who was at Road American for an American Le Mans Series event this weekend. It was a combination that worked well.

Rob Dyson was chosen to qualify the #16 Thetford / Norcold Porsche Crawford on Thursday afternoon, and responded with a fast lap of 1:10.478 / 125.145 mph to earn the 18th starting position. The fact that the Porsche Crawford was able to qualify is a minor miracle after an “off-course excursion” caused the Thetford / Norcold crew to hastily make repairs to their Crawford prior to qualifying. However, all systems were “go” for final practice and the 200-mile sprint.

The race strategy called for Rob Dyson to drive the first stint, then hand the controls of the Thetford / Norcold Porsche Crawford over to Andy Lally for the final segment. During the first ten laps of the race, Dyson reported that his Porsche Crawford was “pushing just a little bit”, but that overall the car was pretty good. On lap 22, the leader (#99) passed Dyson to put the Howard Motorsports entry one lap down in 18th position. Dyson would remain 18th until his green-flag pit stop on lap 34. During this stop, the Thetford / Norcold crew changed four tires, refueled, and Andy Lally took over behind the wheel. Lally would rejoin the race in 20th position, two laps down.

Within the first ten laps of his stint, Lally had gained two positions in the running order and turning laps in the high 1:08 range. By lap 65, Lally had moved up to 16th and was chasing down the #7 car for another position gain. On lap 67, Lally caught and passed the #7 car for 15th. Two laps later, a full course caution waved and Lally reported to the crew that his Porsche Crawford was “a good car with good balance”.

With attrition eliminating several competitors, Lally would restart 14th on lap 72. His mission was to “hunt down” and pass the #8 car for 13th, the only other car two laps down. One lap after the restart, Lally shot past the #8 car to claim 13th, and turned his fastest lap of the race, 1:08.247, on lap 77. Lally brought the #16 Thetford / Norcold Porsche Crawford to the checkered flag in 13th position, a gain of seven positions during his stint.

“Our Porsche Crawford had a little push to start, but the Howard Motorsports team had a strong car for us today,” Rob Dyson stated. “I’m not running for points; therefore, I didn’t want to be in the way of the leaders racing for the win and a championship. I got off line a couple of times, and the buildup on the tires made handling a little tough. Andy (Lally) stepped in and did a marvelous job during the final stint. He’s a very talented driver who performed well.”

“This was a wonderful opportunity and experience for me,” Lally added. “I want to thank Rob Dyson and Howard Motorsports for this race. Their Porsche Crawford was a really good car with good balance. The team did a great job and it was a distinct pleasure to have the opportunity to team with Rob for this race.”

“This was a great way for our team to close our season,” Rick Howard, President of Howard Motorsports commented. “Rob did a great job in the car, and Andy really showed why he is considered one of the bright young stars in sports car racing. They both did a great job, as did our entire team. We had some misfortune early in practice, but our crew did a wonderful job preparing our car for the race. Everyone on our team was proud of the performance today, and to end the season with a strong race gives everyone momentum.”

The Crown Royal 200 at The Glen was the final scheduled race for the #16 Thetford / Norcold Porsche Crawford Team from Howard Motorsports for the 2007 Rolex Series season. Ironically, their best finish in the six-race limited season was the 13th in their final event on Friday evening. Howard Motorsports would like to thank everyone associated with their team (drivers, sponsors, crew, support staff) for an exciting 2007 as they look forward to a bigger and better 2008 season competing in the Grand-Am Rolex Series.