Home » Sports » ALMS/Grand-Am Racing » COMPETITION KEEN AT ROUND ONE OF ALMS

COMPETITION KEEN AT ROUND ONE OF ALMS

©

Fort Worth, Tex. -- The American Le Mans Series for sports car endurance kicked off its third season with a display of great racing. Audi, Corvette, and Porsche took top honors at the Leather Center Grand Prix of Texas at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Tex., on Sunday, March 4, 2001.

Team Audi won it's ninth race in a row, Rinaldo Capello's seventh win, second consecutive and Tom Kristensen's third. Second place also went to Audi with Panoz on the podium in third.

In the GTS class, this is Ron Fellows' second ALMS victory, both at TMS, and Johnny O'Connell's first in GTS (with one prototype win).

In the GT class, Alex Job Racing has a lot to cheer about as Lucas Luhr won in #23 Porsche for the fifth time, the second consecutive. For Sascha Maassen it was his seventh career win. In car # 22, the 911 GT3-RS driven by Randy Pobst and Christian Menzel, Job took second. BMW Team PTG was third.

Hans-J. Stuck #7 BMW Team PTG that he drives with Boris Said (USA): "I am thankful for third place. I want to thank the team for doing such a great job to get me into third place and I want to thank Nic Jonsson for keeping the Porsches back."

The Texas event was BMW Motorsport's first race in the GT class of the series, after two successful seasons with the BMW V12 LMR prototype car. The team raced last year's model of the BMW M3 in Texas, but hopes to introduce its new BMW M3 GTR at the 12-hour race at Sebring International Raceway on March 17. Having celebrated overall series victories, the team is now focused on topping the GT podium.

BMW Motorsport finished fifth in the GT class in the American Le Mans Series season opener at Texas Motor Speedway. JJ Lehto (FIN) started the race in the No. 42 BMW M3 along with Jorg Muller (Monaco).

The American Le Mans Series, created by entrepreneur Don Panoz in 1999, brings the flavor and excitement of the world-famous 24 Hours of Le Mans to North America in a series of events at premier racing facilities. Fans attending the TMS event were able to enjoy pre-race pageantry highlighting the international aspect of the series, with racecars draped in the flags of their entrant's various nations. Later, some of the fastest and most exotic sports cars in the world were turned loose for a two-hour, 45-minute battle on the circuit that incorporates part of the speedway's 1.5-mile, high-banked superspeedway with a twisting, turning infield course.