Flying Lizard Motorsports ace Jörg Bergmeister is another driver to celebrate his 100th American Le Mans Series start this weekend at Lime Rock Park.

Bergmeister joins GT rivals Bill Auberlen and Jan Magnussen along with Butch Leitzinger in celebrating the milestone this weekend.

With five championship wins, 34 race victories and 61 podiums, Bergmeister’s statistics are stunning. The massively tall German forms an “odd couple” pairing with the pint sized American GT ace Patrick Long with whom he has scored three of his five championship titles.

Long understandably is a huge fan of his teammate.

“There’s no one quicker at getting up to speed and pushing for lap times every single session of the weekend than Jörg,” Long said.

“He’s a master on the technical side and he can drive a car that’s outside the window of handling better than most; he can take a subpar, unbalanced car and put on the edge like no one I’ve ever seen.

“But there are some times when that catches him out! My first race in 2005 at Sebring, Lucas (Luhr), Jörg and I were driving together. It was raining, and we all decided to take it easy on the car because there was no forecast for rain for the race. In typical fashion, Jörg went out there hauling it and the team kept getting on the radio telling to take it easy and that he was easily the quickest car on the track; we just needed to shake the car down. He came in, and we asked him how the car was. He said everything was good and he was taking it easy.

“The photo on the front page of the Sebring paper the next day was of him spinning down the frontstretch through all the cones at the pit exit and bowling them all over. You can see his helmet clear as day!

“We all came in that morning and asked him, ‘So you were taking it easy, right?’ But that was classic Jörg. He’s always on the gas and rarely makes mistakes. If you’re not on your game, it’ll be highlighted because he’s always on his.”