 CHRIS DYSON
Chris Dyson won the American Le Mans Series Drivers Championship for 2011. Fittingly done at the second to last race of the year at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. “It was a culmination of a three-year program with Mazda. They have shown unwavering support through it all. We are happy for them for the Manufacturers Championship along with the driver’s title for myself and Guy Smith. When you get down to it, it really is a family affair and our team is as much a family as it is a team.” The team also finished the year with the Michelin Green-X Challenge title, along with the ALMS LMP1 Team Championship and the tire title for Dunlop, for a year-end total of five titles.
Chris won the pole at the team's home track of Lime Rock and he and Guy went on to win the race. He and Guy bookended the start and finish of the 2011 season with firsts in ALMS points in the joint ALMS/ILMC 12 Hours of Sebring and Petit Le Mans. They never finished lower than second in the remaining seven races and won the title by sixty-two points.
In addition to co-driving the #16 G-OIL ModSpace/Construct Corps Lola Mazda coupe, Chris is the Vice President and Sporting Director of Dyson Racing. He has overseen the ongoing growth of the team, culminating in the 2009 multi-year partnership with Mazda to campaign the Lola LMP coupe powered by the 2.0 liter turbo Mazda MZR-R engine in the American Le Mans Series.
Chris is the ALMS leader in consecutive starts at eighty-one with seventy-three top five finishes in ninety-two starts. In 2010, he finished fourth in the 2010 ALMS LMP driver standings. A highlight of the year was the overall win at Mid-Ohio as he held off Simon Pagenaud to take the victory. The Mid-Ohio win also gave Mazda, Dunlop tires and the biofuel isobutanol their first overall ALMS wins. He was also elected to the Road Racing Drivers Club. Other 2010 inductees included Gil de Ferran, Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan and Jimmy Vasser.
He gave up the third spot in the 2009 championship when the #16 car successfully tested BP’s new biofuel blend, Isobutanol, at the Petit Le Mans and the season-ending race at Mazda Raceway and was thus ineligible for points. The Petit Le Mans was a notable race for the #16 car, coming in seven laps ahead of the #20 class winning entry. Chris also competed in the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing sixth in class in the #25 RML AD Group LMP2 Mazda Lola coupe.
In 2008, Chris and his teammate, Guy Smith, drove their Porsche RS Spyder to sixth in the LMP2 driver’s championship, starting off the year with a class third in the 12 Hours of Sebring and finished the year with eight top six finishes.
In 2007, Chris and Guy were fourth in the LMP2 standings, four points behind Dyson drivers Butch Leitzinger and Andy Wallace and in 2006, he had three podiums and six top fives in ten races for sixth in the LMP1 championship.
Chris finished second in the ALMS LMP1 championship in 2005 with six seconds and a third in ten races, including a run of five of six podiums in the season’s last half. In 2004, he garnered six of nine podiums in LMP1, for fourth in the standings.
Chris also drove a Dome-Judd at the 2004 24 Hours of Le Mans with reigning FIA Sportscar champion Jan Lammers, finishing seventh, the highest placed American. The same year, he drove the Zytek 043 prototype sports car to 4th in the Le Mans Endurance Series race at Silverstone, England. In 2004, he made his Toyota Atlantic debut at Portland. Chris also won his first championship in 2003. In his first full year in the series, he won the 2003 ALMS LMP2 championship with four wins including the class win at The 12 Hours of Sebring. Chris won five races in the Rolex Grand-Am Series in 2002, missing the championship by two points.
“I have so many great childhood memories of racing,” Chris says. “When I was small, I used to wake up from naps to the sounds of Pat Smith and my dad checking the timing of my dad’s Datsun 200SX.” From there to being a championship driver and running the premier sports car team in North America – not a bad story – and one that goes from strength to strength.
|
