Hunter-Reay to pull double duty. No!

UPDATE #3 We spoke to some reliable sources on this and it is a little bit complicated so read carefully. Scott Tucker is a gentleman racer who is very motivated to win a championship. As the rules were written, it was obvious that a two car team with three drivers would present an advantage, as a driver only collects points from one car, and you could pick the highest finishing car for your points. Scott Tucker has two hot-shoe drivers to compete with him in his two cars. Scott would have his two drivers qualify the cars, then start one of them. Then he would pit and jump in the other car, and take the highest finishing car. However, ALMS changed the rules at the last minute. In simplest terms, the rule now has made it such that there are certain minimum and maximum times in the car for all drivers, for each car, instead of total driving time for a given driver. This means that Scott Tucker would have to drive at least 30 minutes in each car now, to keep the other driver from going over their maximum. The other key point is that if a driver does not meet the time requirements, the driver is disqualified. Indirectly, this also disqualifies the car as each car is required to have two drivers.

So a rule change here has been made after a team has simply setup their operation and strategy. We have not heard the ALMS position on this, but it would seem quite unfair to do this after a team made an investment according the rules as written. What about all of that expense and investment? We await word from ALMS on this one, and will keep you posted. Scott Morris reporting from Long Beach

04/17/10 The previous update was not how the circumstances panned out and we will provide a further update.

04/16/10 Level Five Motorsports purchased the ORECA-Courage FLM09 for the inaugural season of LMPC competition and brought in ringer Ryan Hunter-Reay for this weekend's race. Based on just 10 laps of practice Hunter-Reay probably would have had pole and won the race. Under ALMS rules either driver can qualify the car and then either driver can start the race. Bottom line with Hunter-Reay qualifying the entry then Tucker starting the race and handing it back over to Hunter-Reay after his minimum 30 min stint they would probably have won bar any mishap with slower GT drivers etc. This scenario obviously occurred to the other entries and they complained and ALMS changed the rule again today (after the entries had been filed we believe, and perhaps after Hunter-Reay had already turned laps)… so word is the owner of Level V has pulled the #95 entry in protest, and we are checking on this.

04/14/10

Ryan Hunter-Reay

Ryan Hunter-Reay will pull double-duty at Long Beach this weekend, running in both the IZOD IndyCar Series for Andretti Autosport and in the American Le Mans Series for Level 5 Motorsports

(ON RUNNING IN BOTH SERIES THIS WEEKEND) "I guess I'm 'old school.' I'd rather be racing than doing anything else, so if I have a chance to run another during the weekend, that's fine with me. Don't get me wrong — it's demanding, but it's workable. We don't have a lot of track time in the ALMS car this weekend, so I can handle it. You probably wouldn't sign on for it every weekend or at every track, but we'll be fine this weekend."

(ON RUNNING AT LONG BEACH) "Long Beach is one of the cornerstones of our sport. If this were golf, I think Long Beach would be one of the 'majors.' It has so much heritage, so much history and such a great vibe. I don't think there is a single driver that doesn't want to have a Long Beach win on their resume. It means that much."