When Muscle Milk Pickett Racing’s Lucas Luhr pulled out the pits after an electrical issue he was four laps down with only two hours remaining – the dream of a Lime Rock Park victory had turned into a nightmare.

To make matters worse he had to come straight back in for a stop-go penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

With incredible pace and clever strategy from the pit box from the Greg Pickett led team, Luhr and Klaus Graf not only charged back into the race lead, they regained the lead in only 90 minutes.

“When you’re four laps down on a circuit like Lime Rock it’s hard to come back, and this victory, having to fight back like we did, makes it that much more memorable,” Luhr said.

“I’m really happy. The Muscle Milk HPD ARX-03a was fantastic and we were able to push like crazy and that’s what we had to do to have a slight chance. That we achieved what we did at the end is incredible.”

The win was the team’s third victory in a row and staked their claim as championship favorites aboard the new HPD P1 machine.

“Up until I got into the lead, I wasn’t really aware what was really going on. I pushed so hard I just kind of blacked out everything and pushed like crazy and cut through traffic and took every risk. I used all the experience I have,” Graf said.

“I had already passed Guy Smith on the outside earlier on so I knew it was my only chance because he was quicker on the straight a little bit and around here, unless you get lucky in traffic, it’s really difficult to pass, plus Guy is a world class driver, he knows what he’s doing, he knows how to defend his position.

“I knew from practice that I could brake quite late going into Turn 1 with our Muscle Milk HPD ARX-03a staying stable. The car was really, really good today for doing something like that, and so I did it, twice even!”