Lakeville, CT, July 9, 2011: Two seconds was a lifetime for Gunnar Jeanette and Ricardo Gonzalez in the #06 Excel Consultants / Composite Resources ORECA FLM09 Le Mans Prototype Challenge (LMPC) racing machine today. The pair finished second in the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park by just that much – in a two hour and 45 minute sprint race highlighted by aggressive racing, 90-plus degree heat, spinning cars and caution periods.

Second place for Jeannette and Gonzalez (fifth overall) was enough to maintain the driver’s points lead for the #06 drivers, but lost the team’s LMPC points lead over Genoa Racing by a single point. This tight point spread may get more exciting with six races left in the 2011 American Le Mans Series (ALMS) season.

The combination of young driver Frankie Montecalvo and Jon Bennett, CORE autosport founder, in the identical #05 Bayshore Recycling / Composite was good for fifth in the LMPC class (10th overall), due to a pit penalty and mechanical woes with the #05 machine.

The day began with Gonzalez behind the wheel of the #06 and Montecalvo in the #05, and it wasn’t long before Montecalvo missed the chicane and Gonzalez was tapped by spinning GT cars, but both continued.  A mere 22 minutes into the event, Gonzalez took the LMPC lead and 30 minutes in, Montecalvo worked his way into third spot.

A yellow flag at the 45-minute mark brought both cars in for driver changes – the #06 was handed over to Gunnar Jeannette with a fuel refill and the #05 was taken over by team founder Jon Bennett with fuel and tires.  The #05 car had to serve a 100-second penalty after mistakenly taking the wave-around the safety car under yellow – a deficit they would never make up.

As the race progressed, Jeannette encountered some close calls in traffic and found himself in third spot with an hour to go, Bennett was in fifth spot but struggling with mechanical issues, difficulties that would only get worse as the day progressed.  With 45 minutes to go, the #06 machine powered into the pits, got fuel and a fresh set of Michelins and went on the attack.  Balancing patience and aggression through the GT car pack, and helped another late yellow flag period, Jeannette blasted his way to second place, a mere two seconds behind the LMPC-winning car of Elton Julian and Eric Lux.

ESPN2 will show a tape-delayed highlight of today’s event on Sunday, July 10 from 1 to 3 p.m. (ET).

Gunnar Jeannette

“P2.  We got some good points today.  Obviously this was not the result we were looking for, but for the championship it was good.  I just wish I had a few more minutes to run down the Genoa car. (won by 2.02 seconds)
“Our team plan was different than Genoa’s – we wanted to have fresh tires at the end.  Lime Rock is notorious for having late race yellows, but unfortunately it was too late for us.  Genoa took tires on their first stop and was able to catch and pass us.  Unfortunately due to the contact that Ricardo had when he was in the car, our toe was askew and it wore out our tires, so the first stint for me on the older tires was extremely difficult.
“But, as soon as the guys bolted on a fresh set of tires it really woke the car up and it was like ‘OK guys, let’s go chase him down’ – and the gap between me and him kept coming down and coming down.  I could even see him and after the last restart, I made it through the whole field, just not him.  Two more laps and I would have had it.  But second place, we’ll take it.”

Ricardo Gonzalez

“I had a great race and a lot of fun, I managed to come from fourth place to the lead, and pulled a 20-second gap to second place.  I did what I could and I handed Gunnar the car in first place.
“We may have made a mistake by not changing tires as I had a clash with another car and got a little bit of damage.  We had to change tires later in the race when it was green, so that’s where we may have lost the race. But that’s racing, but I think it was a good day overall.  We’re still leaving here the championship leaders, which is the main objective.
“I’m happy.”

Jon Bennett

“Overall I think the team had a good day. We had a strong weekend, another good points score for the #06 car.
“Frankie did a good job at the beginning of the race with a very safe start. He had an issue with the chicane, which is very easy to miss, and he handed off a good car to me.  Unfortunately at the driver change, it seemed that there was some kind of issue in the driveline where the gearbox wouldn’t take any throttle from the motor – so it was something either clutch or differential-related.
“It would get better as the car would run and as the air would cool it, but during my fuel stop it got very bad to the point where I could only get about 20% throttle and then it would start to slip.  Lap after lap it would clear up to the point where I could get maybe 75% of the throttle down.  We tried to make up some time but the car was just really injured.  I tried to nurse it back but eventually on the last lap we barely made it back around.
“Mechanical problems are just part of racing and we’ll find out what it was and correct it.  We may actually find out something we can correct on the sister car before something happens on that one.”

Frankie Montecalvo

“I think we had a good run today.  We made up some positions early and got up pretty high.
“As the race went on, I noticed that the car started pushing a little more. Maybe our car setup was a little off and hurt the front tires, which caused me to lock them up and slide past the entrance to the chicane.  That put us a couple of positions back, but I was able to fight through it.  We got up to p3, and made a hard charge until I was done driving.
“It was a tough day with the miscommunication in the pits when I was in the car under yellow and Jon had mechanical problems.  A tough day but we’ll get through it.”