Muscle Milk Pickett Racing have finally killed off their Baltimore “hoodoo” to take their first win on the Maryland street circuit and clinch the 2013 American Le Mans Series P1 championship.

The team suffered horrendous luck with mechanical issues here in 2001 and 2012 and at times today it looked like a victory here today was even unlikely.

After the dramatic initial race start and huge start-line crash, Klaus Graf was finally able to get rolling after a 75 minute delay.

The race time was reduced to a 1 hour, 14 minute sprint – one where the Muscle Milk team was able to take its sixth win in succession.

“I think it’s a great day for Muscle milk, second championship in a row, 6 wins in a row,” Graf said.

“We hadn’t won here yet, so a big win today. We didn’t have a mechanical failure so far this year, I think that speaks much for our organization. Whatever the new series will bring, I think we will bring a new package and have a lot of fun for sure. We had some great races early in the year with Rebellion, but unfortunately they decided to not do the whole year, and still you have to make all the laps.

Luhr had to fight his way back past Guy Smith after losing the lead with 17 minutes remaining.

“It’s always good to have a fight, we never doubted that we couldn’t get back around the 16,” Luhr said.

“On the last restart, a GTC car was leading the field, then an LMP2 car, I don’t know who was in the car, on the acceleration he got out of shape and hit the tires. I had to hit the tires to avoid hitting the wall but I think a BMW hit the back of me. It was a pretty good hit because the front of the car went in the air.”