Intersport Fights Back To Thrill 'em At Mosport

Win, lose or draw, Intersport Racing knows only one way to race, hard and fast. And that's exactly what they did at the 2010 American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patron Mosport Grand Prix.

Never content to drive around playing follow the leader, the No. 37 Lenco Mobile AER Lola had the fans on their feet cheering on Jon Field as he went from the back of the grid carving through traffic, all the way to second place. In merely a handful of laps Jon caught the field of LMP cars. At the 30 minute mark Jon caught and passed the No. 1 Patron Highcroft Acura of David Brabham to take over 2nd place.

At the 44 minute mark Field brought the No. 37 Lola into the pits taking on fuel and four fresh Dunlop tires. Having trouble getting the car back into gear, the car spent 238 seconds in pit lane dropping Jon to 11th place overall.

A few laps later and 56 minutes into the race, Jon returned to the pits bringing the car behind the wall.

"There are a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks out there who think we should run a different motor," said Jon. "And you know, maybe they've got a point. But with our car and setup, the motors we run are our best option to get us to the front."

"We're not here to ride around and play follow the leader," he added. "We're here to go fast. And the package we're running is fast. Sure, we're having some issues, but I'm confident our guys will get them sorted out. And when they do, we're fully capable of getting to the front."

"Either way," Jon concluded, "when we're on the track, our fans can count on us being fast and putting on a show for them."

Kyle Marcelli and Chapman Ducote finished 17th overall in the No. 89 Oreca FLM 09 LMPC car. The pair had been fast all week and started the race from the ninth position on the grid.

Early in the race, the car made contact with the No. 40 GT car, leaving the team with a slightly ill-handling car. Marcelli brought the car in at the 58 minute mark for fuel and Chapman Ducote took over the driving duties.

Feeling a vibration in the car, Chapman Ducote pitted at the 1hr and 40min mark. The team reported and cleaned off heavy pick-up on the right front tire and sent him back out.

Just under the 2 hour mark, the No. 48-GTC Porsche acquired heavy front end damage and stopped on the Andretti straight in the middle of the track after having contact with the No. 8-LMP Lola B09 60.

At 6:03PM IMSA announced the following: "Due to the massive crash that involved the No. 48 car with the barrier, the decision has been made to end the race with the cars in their current positions instead of asking fans to remain for another 29 minutes of racing. The time to repair the damage is estimated to be in excess of three hours. A final lap by all cars in the field will be made with the pace car in the lead.”

And so the race would end 29 minutes short.

"The No. 89 Intersport LMPC is the most technically advanced car I've ever driven at Mosport," said Kyle Marcelli. "It was awesome.  It's unfortunate we didn't get to complete the race. This was my hometown crowd and we had a lot of guests from Lafarge, Dyan Pep, Rite Aid Barrie Trim and SIMCOE Building Center along with friends and family that came out to support us. In the end, though, it's safety first and I'm sure they understand. I know everyone had a great time and it was fun having them here."

The final round of the 2010 American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón is Petit Le Mans powered by MAZDA2 at Road Atlanta. The 1,000-mile/10-hour race is set for 11:15 a.m. ET on Saturday, October 2. SPEED will air the race starting at 11 a.m., with live radio coverage available on American Le Mans Radio presented by Porsche – a production of Radio Show Limited – as well as Sirius Channel 127 and XM Channel 242. Americanlemans.com will stream qualifying live starting at 3:15 p.m. ET on Friday, October 1. Visit the Series’ schedule page  for ticket and accommodation information. Live Timing and Scoring, track schedule, entry list and much, much more will be available on Racehub at americanlemans.com.

One of the founding teams of the American Le Mans Series, Intersport has established itself as a premier independent team in sports car racing. The Dublin, Ohio-based team has taken on mightiest of factory prototype teams in recent seasons and posted noteworthy class victories within that span including an LMP1 triumph at Detroit in 2008 and 2006 at Sebring. You can find out more about Intersport Racing at http://www.intersportracing.com, join our Facebook Fan Page or follow us on Twitter at Intersport37.