Dyson Racing just missed out on another 2005 ALMS victory at Elkhart Lake this past weekend after another close fight with the Champion Audi’s.

Qualifying on pole position for the sportscar sprint in Wisconsin, James Weaver led brilliantly from the start, holding off the Audi’s of Emanuele Pirro and JJ Lehto. Unfortunately, after the first round of pit stops Weaver spun off the track and nosed in to the tyre barriers at the Carousel while trying to over lap a GT class Porsche, and also chasing JJ Lehto, who had taken the lead after the first stops.

“There was no blocking, nothing unusual that caused me to go off,” admitted the British driver. “I just got out on to the marbles and went a little ‘sideways’.

This incident lost the Lola-AER approximately 15 minutes and the teams misfortune was compounded with a stop/go penalty after it was deemed that too many team personnel had been present in the pit lane during Weaver’s stop for repairs and subsequent hand over to Butch Leitzinger.

With the Weaver/Leitzinger Lola effectively out of contention and going on to finish 12 overall and 5th in the LMP1 class, the Chris Dyson and Andy Wallace car took up the fight to the Audi’s.

After a solid start by Chris Dyson, Andy Wallace took over the driving at the one hour eight minute mark. Wallace soon chased down Marco Werner’s leading Audi and after one hour and forty-five minutes took the lead with a clean pass, diving down the inside at Turn 5.

The race now came down to a strategy battle and with the Wallace piloted Dyson Lola in an Audi sandwich approaching the final stages, the scene was set for another dramatic finish. A late yellow added to the tension but in the end Wallace just lost out by three seconds to Frank Biela’s Audi.

Intersport Racing came away from Elkhart ultimately frustrated as a fire in the early stages of the race put paid to what had, by that point, been a positive weekend.

Clint Field had claimed a conclusive LMP2 pole position on Saturday with a time over two seconds faster than their rivals in the Miracle Motorsport Courage and just   three seconds away from the outright pole time.

Clint was sharing the car this weekend with father Jon and Californian Liz Halliday who started the race and immediately built a comfortable lead. Sadly this only lasted until lap 13, as Halliday explained.

“I was coming through Canada Corner smelling smoke, and the next thing I know the guys are radioing me that I’m on fire. All I was worried about was getting off the track. I just wanted to stay out of everyone’s way.”

Equalling their best ever LMP2 result, the Van Der Steur Racing Lola B2K/40 came home a creditable 14th overall and second in class to delight the small but capable team. Ben Devlin completed two impressive stints and once again showed his increasing talent behind the wheel.

The next race on the 2005 American Le Mans Series schedule is at Mosport in Canada over the weekend of ¾ September.

 RACE RESULTS

1  LMP1 E.Pirro/ F.Biela 72 2:45:46.441 1:54.569 10 Audi R8 2  LMP1 C.Dyson/ A.Wallace 72 3.239 2:45:49.680 1:55.200 39 Lola EX257/AER 3  LMP1 J.Lehto/ M.Werner 72 3.777 2:45:50.218 1:54.672 12 Audi R8 4  LMGT1 O.Gavin/ O.Beretta 71 --1 Lap-- 2:46:32.160 2:01.446* 41 Chevrolet Corvette C6-R 5  LMGT1 R.Fellows/ J.O'Connell 71 0142 2:46:32.302 2:01.705 42 Chevrolet Corvette C6-R 6  LMP2 J.Macaluso/ C.McMurry/J.Bucknum 69 --3 Laps-- 2:46:13.722 1:59.213 69 Courage 7  LMP1 M. Lewis / B. Willman 69 16.252 2:46:29.974 2:01.521 42 Riley & Scott MRK III C 8  GT1 A.Bertolini/ F.deSimone 69 22.559 2:46:36.281 2:03.320 59 Maserati MC12 9  LMGT2 M.Petersen/ P.Long/J.Bergmeister 69 40.256 2:46:53978 2:09.614* 40 Porsche 911 10  LMGT2 T.Bernhard/ R.Dumas 69 40.554 2:46:54.276 2:09.792 41 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 11  LMGT2 J.van Overbeek/ J.Fogarty 69 57.177 2:47:10.899 2:10.397 9 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 12  LMP1 J.Weaver/ B.Leitzinger 68 --4 Laps-- 2:45:51.842 1:54.874 11 Lola EX257/AER 13  LMGT2 W.Henzler/ M.Rockenfeller 68 1:15.073 2:47:06.915 2:11.865 48 Porsche 911 GT3 14  LMP2 G.van der Steur/ B.Devlin/E.van der Steur 67 --5 Laps-- 2:46:46.297 2:04.031 41 Lola 15  LMGT2 B.Auberlen/ R.Liddell 67 13.298 2:46:59.595 2:11.515 41 Panoz Esperante GTLM 16  LMGT2 I.Baas/ D.Law 67 14.008 2:47:00.305 2:10.980 42 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 17  LMGT2 M.Franchitti/ B.Sellers 67 20.862 2:47:07.159 2:12.105 36 Panoz Esperante GTLM 18  LMGT2 L.Pechnik/ S.Neiman 67 34.471 2:47:20.768 2:10.944 40 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 19  LMGT2 J.Jackson/ T.Sugden 66 --6 Laps-- 2:47:01.103 2:11.987 23 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 20  LMGT1 T.Weickardt/ M.Rugolo 66 6.368 2:47:07.471 2:07.400 41 Dodge Viper 21  LMGT1 A.Figge/ R.Dalziel 61 --11 Laps-- 2:23:00.056 2:03.837 49 Chevrolet Corvette C5-R 22  LMGT1 T.Borcheller/ J.Mowlem 58 --14 Laps-- 2:25:42.340 2:02.227 52 Saleen S7R 23  LMP2 C.Field/ L.Halliday/J.Field 13 --59 Laps-- 26:41.694 2:01.125 8 Lola B05/40/AER 24  LMP2 J.Bach/ G.Cosmo 2 --70 Laps-- 4:36.302 2:14.065 2 Courage C-65/Mazda