With Monterey in Their Mirrors, PR1/ Mathiasen Looks to Petit
 
Early setbacks regulate PR1/ Mathiasen Motorsports to seventh in Monterey.
September 17, 2011, Monterey, CA

After six-hours of grueling racing, PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports took the checkered flag in seventh place in the ModSpace American Le Mans Series Monterey presented by Patron at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. After qualifying a promising fifth position, Henri Richard, a native of France now living in Los Altos Hills, CA, spun the #52 Future Electronics/ Quest Software/ FaceCake/ Grooveshark/ Freescale/ Hewlett-Packard Company/ Pounce Consulting Oreca FLM09 in turn eleven with the green flag waiving in sight, slightly damaging the front splitter and nose. Rejoining the race in the back of the field, Richard was able to claw his way up to the back of the LMPC class when the #52’s handling characteristics began to drop off due to a small air leak in the right front tire during his second stint of the day. The situation went from bad to worse causing an unmanageably difficult handling car that suffered a series of spins within the first few hours of the race causing the car to lose as much as five laps to the nearest competitor in sixth. As is often the case in long distance endurance racing, the loss of several laps early on became an insurmountable obstacle for the team to overcome despite completing the remainder of the race unscathed.

Despite today’s troubles, Richard is confident that PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports will have the #52 ready for the final round of the ALMS season, the ten-hour Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
“I hate it for all of the guys,” Richard said. “I made the mistake coming to the green flag, just got too hard on the throttle and spun around. I hit the wall slightly and the front end was damaged which caused the handling to change significantly. This ultimately stressed the tires too much causing them to fall off far faster than usual. Once we got the puncture, the car was impossible to drive and we lost several more laps. I know these guys though. They’ll rebuild the car for Petit and we’ll unload with one of the fastest LMPC cars in the paddock. We have to put this day behind us and focus on our next challenge at the Petit Le Mans in a few weeks to end this season on a high note.”
Driving during the middle two hours of the six-hour race today, Ken Dobson, a native of Monterey now living in Sonoma, CA, realized that rejoining the race several laps down would transform his stint into a test session for the upcoming race at Road Atlanta.

“Road Atlanta and Laguna Seca are very different from each other, but there are a significant number of similarities,” Dobson said. “Both have extreme elevation changes, tight layouts, and both ALMS events transition from day to night causing grip levels to evolve dramatically over the course of the race distance. Once I got in the car, I knew that our only real chance to move forward was for the guys ahead of us to have problems of their own. Not a great situation to be in, but I decided not to dwell on the negatives and used my time in the car to prepare myself for Petit in a few weeks. I studied how my competitors dealt with traffic going up and downhill and really paid attention to how the car reacted as the ambient temperature dropped. I know it’s looking for a silver lining a bit, but we have a big challenge waiting for us at Road Atlanta and I’ll look for any advantage that I can find.”

René Villeneuve of Los Angeles, CA, drove the longest stretch today, logging two and a half hours while setting the team’s fastest lap of the day.
“This was my first race in the car, and getting to drive a prototype at my home track was a real treat,” Villeneuve said. “We didn’t get what we deserved today, but it was still an absolute joy to drive with a team of PR1/Mathiasen’s caliber. They showed real integrity out there, completing some of pit lane’s fastest stops even when it was obvious that a top result was largely unreachable. Situations like these are always tough to deal with, but you just have to go out there and hit your marks, and that’s what I did. I wanted to put us in a position to capitalize on our competitor’s mistakes, but those guys up front all ran clean, so there wasn’t much we could do. Still, it was a fantastic experience for me and I’m very much looking forward to helping build a successful program in 2012. It’s true what they say about prototypes. Once you get in one, it’s all you’ll want to drive from there on out.”

PR1/Mathiasen Team Principal, Bobby Oergel, already has his team focused on Petit.
“It’s never a comfortable feeling going several laps down early on,” Oergel said. “It forces you into a situation where you have to see what sorts of anvils will fall on the competition rather than controlling the race from the front. You’re never going to make up five laps on pure speed, and even though a typical six hour race will produce opportunities to get some laps back with wave arounds and strategy, that just didn’t happen today with so few full course cautions. We never dwell on the past though, we just take the lessons we learn from our rough days and apply them to generate more positive results in the future. We had a great race at Road Atlanta last year with a top qualifying effort and a podium finish, so meeting and exceeding those accomplishments this year is what we’re focusing on now.”
The final round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón season, the ten-hour Petit Le Mans at the legendary Road Atlanta, will begin on October 1, 2011 at 11:30am ET with live coverage on ESPN3.com beginning at 11:15am ET.
Potential partners interested in the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón LMPC program can contact the team directly at pr1motorsports@aol.com or at (559) 277-1300.

About Future Electronics:
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Quest creates simple-to-use IT management software that saves time and money across virtual, physical, and cloud environments. Their award-winning products and time-saving services ease the toughest IT challenges for more than 100,000 customers worldwide. Customers need simpler ways to do powerful things. That’s what Quest has delivered since 1987.
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About FaceCake Marketing Technologies:
FaceCake Marketing Technologies, Inc., is a pioneer and innovator in personalized interactive marketing. FaceCake’s proprietary Visual Demonstration System (VDS) allows users to manipulate their own images, with a wide range of image transformation and animation capabilities, to try on and try out various products and services. The VDS in conjunction with the FaceCake patented Mirror Image Marketing solution provides user-specific, highly targeted promotion of products on user images, for unprecedented levels of personalization. FaceCake is headquartered in Calabasas, California.
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About Grooveshark:
Grooveshark is the world’s largest on-demand and music discovery service. With over 15 million songs, Grooveshark is an ecosystem that brings together music fans, bands, music labels, and brands.
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About HP:
Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), commonly referred to as HP, is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA. The company was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, and is now one of the world’s largest information technology companies, operating in nearly every country. HP specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware, designing software and delivering services. Major product lines include personal computing devices, enterprise servers, related storage devices, as well as a diverse range of printers and other imaging products. HP markets its products to households, small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprises directly as well as via online distribution, consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers, software partners and major technology vendors. www.hp.com

About Pounce Consulting:
Pounce Consulting is an information technology service firm located in Orange County, California with operations in the US, Mexico and Latin America, a Global Delivery Center in Guadalajara, Mexico, and a ERP Support Center in Monterrey, Mexico. Pounce provides its customers with on-site and off-site consulting services and IT resources in the areas of custom application development, systems development, ERP practice Oracle, SAP, Dynamix AX, QA/Test outsourcing and IT staffing.
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About PR1 Motorsports:
In paddocks packed with excellent teams and quality drivers, PR1 Motorsports has established itself as one of the top driver development programs. Based in Fresno, CA, PR1 Motorsports occupies an expansive facility housing a stable of F2000 Zetec and professional sports cars. Team drivers enjoy the benefits of a completely professional program including engineering support, state-of-the art data acquisition, and a race winning experienced crew. PR1 Motorsports drivers, and partners, also enjoy first-class trackside hospitality and comprehensive marketing support.
PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports team information can be found at: www.PR1Motorsports.com
Press contact: Eric Wildt at (707) 480-7350 or ericwildt01@mac.com
Photo Credit: David Alden Wilks