Club Arnage

Terrific race at Elkhart Lake today, Johnny Cocker passing Klaus Graf's Porsche RS Spyder in the last couple of corners on the last lap to pull out the win.  One of the Rahal BMW's taking GT honors from the 45 Flying Lizard Porsche.  Other big news from the weekend, 50+ cars for the Petit, including the Factory Audi's & Peugeot's.
The ALMS released the 2011 schedule, 12 races, including of course Sebring on March 19th, the Petit on Oct 15.
Fax

Fantastic news.  Love 'em or hate 'em it's always good to see them in the flesh.

Dx

Well derserved victory for Drayson.

For some reason I have never warmed to him but there is no denying his commitment and also derserves praise for bringing on the the talents of Cocker when it would have been easier to stick in an old pro.

When did a Lola last win a top flight sportscar race outright in the USA?

Bloody good and well done to him and the team - having met him (professionally) on a number of occasions in previous pre-racing incarnation, he was a good, courteous  bloke with the right interests at heart; having met him a couple of times since he took up racing properly, that doesn't seem to have changed.  Ok, he's a businessman who is savvy in all sorts of ways, but that he continues to progress and, as a privateer, has managed to progress from newcomer "amateur" gentleman driver/team owner to where they are now is good to see, and the race results on their website show a continuing upward curve from 2008 to the present. 

On the "when did Lola last win a top flight sportscar race outright in the USA" question, I'd hazard a random guess at the IMSA GTP series of the 80s/early 90s?     

MG Mark

Actually the last Lola win was two weeks ago at Mid-Ohio ;D, the Rob Dyson Lola-Mazda took the laurels in the hands of Guy Smith & Chris Dyson.  But prior to that the last Lola win may have been when James Weaver & Butch Leitzinger won at Mid-Ohio about four or five years ago in a Lola-AER.  There are a lot of Lola's, in various forms pounding around racing circuits over here every weekend, they've always been a popular choice of the pros and club racers alike.
The Drayson team has been a nice addition to the ALMS, Paul seems to have a solid, hard working bunch behind him, and the Lola-Judd combination has been shatteringly quick in recent races, especially in Cocker's hands, being on pole for the past two races, and would probably have won both, but for the mother of high speed tank slappers at Mid-Ohio's ultra fast turn one while Drayson was driving.
Fax

Metal note to pay more attention to what happens in the USA. I was thinking it would have been a T70 or something in the 80's. ;D

Lola have have always been around, but its good to see them regularly challanging for overal wins again. Its also good for the ALMs to have a car available to all that can be reliable and fast aka the 962. Hope they can put up a godd show when Audi and Pug pitch up.

I wonder if perhaps it's because every time his name is mentioned it is prefaced with the words "Labour Peer"?  We all know that makes him a colleague of Lord Mandelson and I suspect, subconciously at least, we all reckon Drayson's probably bummed him. It goes with the job. That's my theory anyway, but hats off to his noble Lordship nonetheless.

Supplementary question, when did a Lord (either Life or Hereditary) last win a major sportscar race? (And I don't include '88 LM winner Johnny Dumfries who is a Marquis).

We had a brief chat with him at Spa last year and one of his political comments went along the lines of "working with the present (then, labour) goverment is like driving a perfect lap around Spa then throwing the car in the wall just as you cross the finishing line!"  I don't think he was overly impressed with the way things were going in Westminster....

You can't fault him for passion and enthusiasm, the victory was well deserved!

That's pretty much entirely why he left MOD/Westminster - brought in by the (then) government to sort out Defence Procurement, it was the one thing that he was not actaully allowed by them to do......

MG Mark

It might also be worth noting here that Beechdean Mansell won the LMS at Hungaroring at the weekend.

Fortunately, Our Nige wasn't driving ;) but he'll be back to crash at Silverstone!

True, but it was beaten by 3 P2 cars!!

6 P2 cars actually.....