Muscle Milk Pickett Racing continued its dominant season-long performance in the American Le Mans Series by taking its eighth consecutive overall victory at Virginia International Raceway today – further extending the team’s own series record.

Lucas Luhr also collected his 49th series win. The German now has the opportunity to record his 50th at the final ever ALMS race at Petit Le Mans in two weeks.

Next season the ALMS and the GRAND-AM Rolex Series will merge to form the Tudor United SportsCar Championship.

Luhr and teammate Klaus Graf had one of their toughest races of the year  today against the Dyson Racing Lola Mazda of  Guy Smith and Johnny Mowlem giving the team its most competitive outing of the year – spending 31 laps of the 84 lap race in first place.

“It’s nice to have 49 wins. Now, of course, the aim is to get 50 at Petit but to the race itself, I think today we had very strong competition from Dyson Racing with Guy Smith and Johnny Mowlem. We know from the past that they have been very quick here,” Luhr said.

“Klaus did a great move at the exit of (Turn) 1 to get us into the lead but in my first stint I lost the lead against Guy (Smith). When Brandon (Fry) called me in during the safety car period, the call came very, very late and I was nearly by the pit entrance already.

“I knew at this point that it could work out for us. All I had to do was push as hard as I could on the last restart and open up a gap. I controlled it from there.

“The victory mainly came thanks to the strategy call and the great pit stops by the Muscle Milk Pickett Racing crew.”