Salt Lake

TOOELE, UT May 16, 2009 – In the fourth appearance of the American Le Mans Series at Miller Motorsports Park near the Great Salt Lake, Dyson Racing qualified second and third today in LMP2 for Sunday’s Utah Grand Prix. A driver’s favorite, the track is the first natural terrain road course of the year and Guy Smith in the #16 BP Mazda Lola Coupe set fastest class times in the first two sessions of the weekend. Butch Leitzinger qualified the #20 BP sponsored car second in class and Chris Dyson qualified the #16 entry third, two tenths behind Leitzinger

The Dyson Racing Team found additional speed after finishing second and third in class at Long Beach. A week after the southern California race, the team tested one of their Mazda-powered cars at the Auto Research Center’s seven post shaker rig in Indianapolis. Peter Weston, Chief Engineer, said that “the test confirmed that the direction we were going with the #16 car at Long Beach with softer springs and more damper control in the car was a good combination. When there is too much variation in the load at the tires’ contact patch and if the load is changing a lot, than the grip level will be quite low. The driver will drive to the lowest level of grip he thinks he has. So if you can minimize that variation, the grip level increases and the driver has more confidence.”

“This track produces some of the fastest average lap speeds of the season,” said Dyson. “Our Lola has an aerodynamic package that suits these speeds and a turbocharged engine that is not affected as much by the altitude. It is good to be on a track where we can run our Mazda flat-out. We missed the set-up a bit for qualifying today, but we are confident with our race trim.”

The race starts at 2:15 p.m. MDT tomorrow. SPEED will same day broadcast the race at 10 p.m. EDT, and Sirius 126 and XM 242 will broadcast the race at 4 p.m. ET. American Le Mans Radio and Live Timing and Scoring will be available on Racehub at americanlemans.com.

Mazda is the brand choice of road racers across North America. On any given weekend, there are more Mazdas on the road-race-tracks of America than any other brand. You will see MX-5 Miata, RX-8, MAZDA3, MAZDA6, RX-7 and other vintage Mazda models because every Mazda has the Soul of a Sports Car.