December 24, 2009 - Sonoma, California - Flying Lizard Motorsports announced today that The Racer's Group (TRG) will enter a TRG/Flying Lizard Porsche in GT at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the season-opener for the Grand-Am Road Racing Series. In the ShoreTel-sponsored No. 66 Porsche GT3 Cup Car, Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long will join Johannes van Overbeek and Seth Neiman for the 24-hour endurance race to be held on January 30-31, 2009.
Bergmeister has won three times at the Rolex 24: in GT in 2009 (with Patrick Long), in GT and overall in 2003, and in GT in 2002, all with TRG. He was also the Grand-Am Daytona Prototype champion in 2006 (with Krohn Racing). Bergmeister and Long are Porsche factory drivers and will be co-drivers in the Flying Lizard No. 45 Porsche for the 2010 ALMS season. With Flying Lizard, the duo won the 2009 ALMS GT2 drivers' championship. van Overbeek, who drove with the Lizards from 2004-2009 in the ALMS, has competed seven times at the Rolex 24. Notably, in 2007 he finished third with TRG, in 2004 took the pole and second in GT (and third overall) with Seth Neiman and Mike Rockenfeller in the Flying Lizard No. 74 Porsche and finished third in GT and overall in 2003.
All four drivers will participate in the test January 8-10 at Daytona. The No. 66 will be managed by TRG, with some Lizards at the helm including Thomas Blam (chief strategist in the ALMS), Craig Watkins (chief engineer) and Tommy Sadler (crew chief and co-technical director).
Seth Neiman commented, "I've always loved the 24 Hours of Daytona, but given our other commitments, it just hasn't been practical to run here. Working with our Porsche cousins at TRG we have an opportunity to field a very strong entry. TRG has had consistent success in Grand-Am and I'm confident that they will deliver a solid program. Joerg, Patrick and Johannes have a lot of combined experience here and of course, have shown that they excel in long races. And having Thomas, Craig and Tommy there will bring the familiarity of the Lizard team to the effort."
News used with permission from Flying Lizard Motor Sport.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
