The Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche team finds itself in strange territory, chasing an ALMS GT title rather than defending one. The 2008 and 2009 ALMS GT Team champions were punted on the first lap at Sebring. They eventually returned to finish tenth, far adrift with nine races remaining,

It is 432 miles from their Sonoma race base to downtown Long Beach, but the road to the 2012 championships will be even longer. That road to recovery begins here at Long Beach, where the Lizard’s Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long have two victories.

Standing in their path are the Sebring winning and defending champion Joey Hand and BMW Team RLL, now paired with Dirk Müller, as well as the Sebring runner-up Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia and the third-place Sebring Corvette of Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner. Veteran Bill Auberlen and Jorg Mueller back the BMW Team RLL pair.

Meanwhile, the relentlessly improved Extreme Speed Ferraris of Scott Sharp and Johannes van Overbeek fly the Ferrari flag with teammates Ed Brown and Guy Cosmo.

The Flying Lizards will look to teammates Seth Neiman and Marco Holzer for support while the #17 Porsche of Wolf Henzler and Bryan Sellers, who proved victorious on the streets of Baltimore last fall, and the new Miller Racing Porsche of Sascha Maassen and Bryce Miller demonstrate the depth of the ALMS Porsche line-up. The ever-popular Adrian Fernandez returns to Long Beach teamed with Darren Turner in an Aston Martin Vantage.

Making its 2012 ALMS debut at Long Beach is the Lotus Evora GTE, from three-time ALMS GT champion Alex Job Racing, with Townsend Bell and Bill Sweedler aboard.

A pair of new SRT Vipers will join the GT battles at midseason and make gaining points even tougher.

In the LMP2 class, defending class champions Level 5 Motorsports return with a powerful two-car team. The two-time GT Challenge class champions Black Swan Racing has moved up to the LMP2 class with an HPD powered Lola. Conquest Endurance also throws their hat into the LMP2 class ring with an Oak-Pescarolo sports car.