Darren Law Takes 7th Place in Action Filled ALMS St. Pete Race
Phoenix resident and Flying Lizard Motorsports driver Darren Law brought the team’s #44 Porsche GT3 RSR to the checkered flag in 7th place in the LMGT2 class after taking over from teammate Seth Neiman in this weekend’s American Le Mans Series Acura Sports Car Challenge of St. Petersburg presented by XM Satellite Radio endurance race.
The St. Petersburg race, which marked the second round of the 11-race 2008 American Le Mans Series schedule, saw several yellow flag caution periods and attrition due to contact. The LMGT2 class win went to the Tafel Racing Ferrari of Dominik Farnbacher and Dirk Mueller.After a limited practice schedule, Law qualified the #44 Flying Lizard entry, and placed the car 6th on the grid with a lap of 1:31.190 of the bumpy and extremely quick and challenging 1.8 mile street course circuit. Neiman was at the controls of the #44 for the Saturday afternoon start of the scheduled 1.5 hour race, and took the green flag amidst the 27-car field that included 14 cars in the LMGT2 class field. Neiman, who drove a clean stint, pitted under yellow flag conditions after roughly 45 minutes in the car, and handed over to Law.Darren, who left pit lane in 11th, knew that making up positions on the technical street circuit would be difficult, and he also knew that staying clear of the numerous incidents that caught out several other teams would be paramount. Law eventually would work his way up to 7th, and would maintain that position to the checkered flag on lap 74.The hard fought 7th place finish gave the Law/Neiman duo enough points to maintain 3rd place in the LMGT2 class points race with 30 total. Farnbacher and Mueller in the Tafel Racing Ferrari currently lead the championship race with 34 points, followed closely by the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche lineup of Jorg Bergmeister and Wolf Henzler.Driver Quote Darren Law“St. Pete is definitely a tough circuit. I love racing here, and the circuit requires real commitment in some high-speed corners. There isn’t much grip, and we all had problems putting the power down, which I’m sure contributed to some of the yellows. The #44 was good today, and we were able to run some quick laps over the course of the race. Really, it was just a matter of running hard and trying to stay as clean as possible. I just tried to keep our #44 Lizard car out of trouble. We’ll take the points, and hopefully we can stay in the top three in the championship hunt.”Upcoming Events and InfoDarren will next pilot the Flying Lizard Porsche at the Miller Motorsports Park circuit for the Utah Grand Prix the weekend of May 16 through 18. Law will miss the American Le Mans Series’ 4th round at the Long Beach Grand Prix in two weeks due to his commitments to the Brumos Porsche squad, as they take on the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No.16 field in Mexico for the Mexico City 250.
