Victory for Park Place Motorsports at Petit Le Mans
Despite torrential downpours, a large number of cautions and even a brief race stoppage, Park Place Motorsports drivers Patrick Lindsey, Spencer Pumpelly and Madison Snow would take a hard-earned victory during Saturday’s rain-shortened Petit Le Mans, the final round of the 2015 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season.
“I can’t believe it!" stated team principal and driver Patrick Lindsey. "I’m in a little bit of shock. Driving in such tedious, scary, treacherous, difficult conditions was draining and I almost don’t have the emotional capacity to, one, process what happened and two, to feel the elation. I’m just so happy for these guys that we can celebrate as a team. It’s going to be really sweet just to go into the off-season, with this win at Petit and with an endurance race win. It’s such an iconic race - having this one in our trophy case is going to be something special for years to come.”
Slated originally as a 10-hour race, the No. 73 Park Place Dealerships Porsche 911 GT America would take the green flag from the front row in class, qualifying as the top Porsche yet again this season. With Spencer Pumpelly at the wheel, the Georgia resident wasted no time pushing as the race began, setting some of the fastest laps in the field and chasing the race leading No. 93 Viper.
Holding his own and not taking unnecessary risk, Pumpelly settled in to his own pace as the race continued, driving through a series of yellow flags and simply avoiding incident.
Nearing the two-hour mark, team engineer John Horton would take the decision to put Patrick Lindsey in the vehicle, keeping a keen eye on minimum drive-time to make sure that both Lindsey and Pumpelly earned fulled points for the day’s running.
With Lindsey understanding that patience would be key, the Californian drove a cautious series of stints, maintaining a delicate pace with a keen understanding that in harsh conditions, a conservative approach would be the best.
Due to the weather, the race ran under continued yellow flag periods, with only a handful of green flag laps run throughout much of the event due to extremely tricky track conditions.
Running his stints without incident, as the race past the halfway mark, the time came for the race to be re-handed to Pumpelly, several seconds down from the lead but with a car that proved formidable under the circumstances. As the laps counted down, Pumpelly continued to set some of the fastest laps in class, eventually finding himself in second albeit 11 seconds down from race leader Andy Lally in the No. 44 Porsche.
As the race continued, however, Pumpelly’s pace was clearly quicker, closing the gap by as much as 1.5 seconds per lap, and narrowing the gap to just under five seconds when series officials elected to stop the race due to the worsening conditions.
With the race past the required halfway point, many assumed that the event might be called, with Pumpelly in second. While happy with a podium, there was a palpable feeling of disappointment that another win might have slipped away. However, just as the feeling began to set in, the track was declared fit to race again, and the green flag was waved within the hour.
Having bunched the field back up, Pumpelly was now within reach of Lally, and the two would engage in a nose-to-tail battle for several laps before Spencer would take advantage of faster traffic passing through, eventually finding himself in the lead and never looking back.
Building a gap, the final yellow flag would be called as the race neared the eight-hour mark, only this time series officials would elect to cancel the race outright as rain conditions and fading light were simply too challenging to continue safely.
Pumpelly would take the checkered flag yet again for the team, their second on the season and matching as the winningest GTD Porsche this year.
“Fantastic job by everyone on this team," stated Pumpelly. "The crew worked so hard and put together a fantastic car. You can’t win without a fantastic car here and that’s what Park Place and my co-drivers put together. Once the conditions hit, we realized that we had a long, arduous day ahead but we managed to keep the car pointed straight on the race track and we got to the end in first. I wanted Madison to get in and finish this thing off for us and I know he would have held the lead, no problem. But we ended up where we wanted to be and I can’t thank the Park Place team enough. I can’t think of a better way to end the season.”
With two wins, two poles and a top five finish in the series’ championship, the entire team will close their 2015 knowing they had a breakout year with ever-increasing momentum headed into 2016. While no formal announcements have been made, the team plans a series of upcoming statements on their 2016 ambitions.
Park Place Motorsports is an extension of Dallas-based Park Place Dealerships, which represents upscale manufacturers Porsche, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Lexus, Bentley, Maserati, Lotus, Rolls-Royce, Volvo and Smart. Park Place Motorsports augments the unparalleled attention its dealerships provide by offering customers a premium level of support in relation to their motorsports activities. Services include maintenance and repair, driver and racecar support, and parts engineering and distribution. These offerings are authentically promoted by Park Place Motorsports’ flagship GT Daytona team in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.
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