Vipers back to victory lane
Vipers back to victory lane
Twelve months after returning to international competition and 4,606 days since the famous brand last tasted victory in the American Le Mans Series, the Viper is back in victory lane.
Then known as the Dodge Viper, the No.91 car of Olivier Beretta, Karl Wendlinger and Dominique Dupuy (pictured right) won the GTS class in the Race of a Thousand Years on the streets of Adelaide, Australia on New Years Eve in 2000.
Twelve years, seven months and 11 days later the No.91 is back in victory lane with Dominik Farnbacher and Marc Goosens victorious at Road America aboard the new generation car now known as an SRT Viper.
After a frantic race which started on a damp track, the German/Belgian duo fought to a nail biting finish with the big V10 down its last drops of fuel in the tank.
In what marked a remarkable weekend for American sportscar racing, the Road America event featured both the American Le Mans Series and the GRAND-AM Rolex Series both competing on the same weekend. The weekend was a preview of what the future holds in 2014 with the launch of the United SportCar Racing championship.
Overall honors today went to the Muscle Milk Pickett Racing duo of Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr – the duo winning their fifth straight ALMS event.
The P2 victory went right down to the wire when both Marino Franchitti (Level 5 Motorsport) and Guy Cosmo (Extreme Speed Motorsport) had to make late race pit stops for fuel.
Having pitted one lap earlier, Cosmo swept past Franchitti as he exited the pits. The duo had previously held a large margin over Franchitti’s Level 5 teammate Simon Pagenaud who had stopped 30 minutes earlier but it wasn’t enough to keep him behind during the stops.
Pagenaud took the victory with Level 5’s Scott Tucker.
Other class victories went to Bruno Junquiera and Duncan Ende in PC and Spencer Pumpelly and Nelson Canache Jr in GTC.
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