ALMS Baltimore Race Round Up: A Race of Attrition
The Grand Prix of Baltimore truly was a race of attrition. The field did not even make it to the start/finish line, before a massive crash took out half of the GT class. The race was shortened as safety crews worked feverishly to clear the debris from the front straight.
Scott Tucker, in the P2 class, number 551 Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b was forced to slow down after the P1 class Dyson Racing Lola jumped the start. Tucker was then struck from behind by the Extreme Speed Motorports HPD ARX-03b of Anthony Lazzaro. Tucker then spun in front of the GT class, who had no way of avoiding Tucker on the narrow street course.
The crash brought an early end to the day for the number 62 Risi Competizone Ferrari F458 Italia, The Porsche 911 GT3 RSR’s of CORE Autosport (number 06), Paul Miller Racing (number 48), and Team Falken Tire (number 17). Three other cars were involved but were able to rejoin the race.
Once the race was finally restarted, the action lasted until turn 4, where the other Extreme Speed Motorsports car piloted by Ed Brown shunted Chris Cumming into the wall resulting in another restart once the track was, once again, cleared.
Graf and Luhr faced some tough competition from Chris Dyson and Guy Smith which even saw Smith putting his Lola in the lead until Luhr passed him with under twenty minutes to go. Muscle Milk/Pickett Racing’s win in P1 secured their championship with three races remaining in the 2013 season.
Guy Cosmo’s move from P2 class team Extreme Speed Motorsports to rival Level 5 Motorsports paid off as he helped his new teammate Marino Franchitti capture the P2 win.
The Corvettes and BMW’s put on quite a show in GT, battling through the 12 turn 2 mile road course. The Corvettes pulled off the one-two finish over the Team RLL BMW’s to further their championship points lead.
Flying Lizard Motorsports survived the carnage to take the win in the GTC class.
The next round in the 2013 ALMS season is September 19-21 2013 at The Circuit of the Americas.
Tim DeLong