A BITTER END TO A PROMISING RACE

Salinas, CA (October 10, 2009). On the heels of a successful start to the American Le

Mans season’s last race of 2009 at the historic Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey

California, the day’s event began as has been customary for the team when during the

morning warm-up session a mistake was made in warming up the car before taking to the track resulting in a fracture of the hybrid motor’s drive gear resulting in the team having to break the car apart to replace the electric motor in half the time that would be normally allocated otherwise the No. 48 GZ-09-SH LMP1 Hybrid would not made the pit opening and have to start from the pits. The team put together a yeoman’s effort as usual as the car was the last to roll onto the pit lane from the paddock.

The opening ceremonies for the event were of even greater importance as team principal Steve Pruitt’s nephew Jared Kuntz who recently enlisted in the Marines is stationed in Monterey and together with three of his enlisted Marines served as flag bearers for the ceremonies.

The race began with Johnny piloting the revolutionary car and finding himself in his

qualifying position at the end of turn one a turn that historically takes out a number of

competitors early on as every car jockeys for track position. The pole sitter and eventual race winner Gil de Ferran in his last appearance as a driver drove away from the field until the first yellow flag when the Johnny was able to close up to the leader.

For the  next 2 hours Johnny drove a virtually error free race and smartly maintained the No. 48 Hybrid while maintaining contact with the race leader often punctuated with dices with Luis Diaz in the Lowe’s Fernandez Acura David Brabham in the Patron Highcroft Acura and Jon Field in the Intersport Lola Johnny pitting once for tires and fuel while maintaining track position and eventually finishing the better part of his second stint in second place overall while recording the team’s fastest lap of the race on lap 58 with a 1:15.231 time.

Two hours and fifteen minutes into the race Johnny pitted for fuel tires and driver change with Stefan Johansson taking control. Stefan’s stint began with the Patron Highcroft Acura having lost two laps for an incident and having put a lap on the Intersport Lola. It seemed that lady luck would final appear for the team when it al began to unravel.

Twenty minutes into the stint Stefan radioed in that he had lost steering and limped the

car back into the pits where it was discovered that the wiring loom that controlled the

steering had frayed and was arcing across the conductive carbon fiber monocoque filling the driving compartment with smoke. The team worked feverishly to determine the problem and solve with copious amounts of duct tape to create a friction barrier and insulation. The engineers reset the computer systems that controlled the steering and Stefan went back into the fray after an 8:31 pit stop losing eight laps and dropping from second place overall to seventh. Stefan as did Johnny drove flawlessly and began to work his way back up the timing chart and with forty minutes left in the race unlapped himself from the Autocon Lola which was holding third place in the LMP1 class.

It was then that Stefan used the power of the hybrid drive train to hunt down a possible podium finish. Stefan was reeling the Autocon car in at a rate of six second a lap and with twenty minutes left in the race had climbed to within fifteen seconds of third place when going into turn two he suffered a right rear puncture and had to limp the car around the remaining eight turns as the tire carcass came apart shredding the rear bodywork.

Stefan arrived at the pits and the team changed tires and used bear bond to secure the frayed body work sending Stefan back out but time had run out as the checkered flag dropped at the fourth hour and the car down a lap to secure a place on the podium.

“There are a number of positives to take from the event though nothing puts a salve on

the inability to stand on the podium for which we clearly had a better car than some of

those on the podium save for the racing luck or lack thereof that we have experienced this year” said team principal Steve Pruitt. “We ran the smaller engine opting for reliability rather than performance leaving the performance addition to the hybrid and the combination proved competitive. Johnny and Stefan drove the best they have driven all year which I attribute to better preparation of the car.” Adding “the take away was that without the eight laps lost due to the steering wire and the two laps lost to the puncture we would have been on the lead lap and quite possibly competing for the overall victory.”

The performance does provide promise for the future, one that will certainly hinge on the team’s ability to attract sponsorship to enable further development of the revolutionary system which we are running and hopefully all of the exposure, press and interest we generated in what we doing this weekend will result in someone taking notice of what we are trying to accomplish”.

In addition to the car’s exhibition at the Center for Automotive Research Stanford on

Wednesday and the half page article in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, the Discovery

Channel elected to film the car and the team during the event as part of an upcoming

feature on energy, environment and the earth highlighting the potential that the

development of hybrid technologies might serve in a global energy solution given that the Corsa LMP1 Hybrid is the only car of its kind.