Road America was a weekend to remember

It was a decent crowd on Saturday

Before all eyes focus on next weekend’s inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix, we couldn’t let Saturday’s epic finish at Road America pass without a quick look back. Baltimore will have a tough time topping the Time Warner Cable Road Race Showcase – a four-hour classic that featured the closest overall finish in the history of the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patr¢n.

Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf won by just 0.112 seconds in Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing’s Lola-Aston Martin coupe over Dyson Racing’s Chris Dyson and Guy Smith. That broke the previous record of 0.148 seconds, set in 2000 at Mosport between Audi and BMW.

The outcome was the latest in seven years of thrilling Road America finishes. The total margin of victory in ALMS overall races in Elkhart Lake now stands at 9.509 seconds.

The record-setting finish wasn’t the only great storyline to emerge from Road America. Risi Competizione’s Jaime Melo and Toni Vilander made a winner out of the Ferrari F458 Italia for the first time in ALMS. It’s the fourth model from Maranello to win in the Series, joining the 550 Maranello, F360 Modena and the F430 GT.

The Challenge classes provided notable results, too. Butch Leitzinger and Rudy Junco gave PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports its first American Le Mans Series victory with an LMP Challenge win. It was the first for Junco and 10th for Leitzinger, who has now won races in five classes – LMP1, LMP675, LMP2, GTC and now LMPC.

In GT Challenge, Black Swan Racing’s Jeroen Bleekemolen went from third to first on the final lap to win at Road America for the second year in a row. Three cars finished on the lead GTC lap – a class record at the circuit.

Next up for the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patr¢n is the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix, set for 4:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, September 3. The race will air on ABC, Sunday, Sept. 4 at 4 p.m. (ET) and be shown live in the U.S. on ESPN3.com or americanlemans.com outside the U.S. Live coverage also will be available on Rogers Sportsnet in Canada and MotorsTV in Europe. Ticket and schedule information is available on the ALMS schedule page.