May 11, 2006–Houston, Texas–Flying Lizard Motorsports’ No. 44 and No. 45 Porsches qualified sixth and seventh, respectively, for Friday’s Lone Star Grand Prix of Houston. Lonnie Pechnik brought the No. 44 to a sixth place starting position on the grid for tomorrow’s race on the 1.7-mile street circuit at Houston’s Reliant Park. Pechnik’s take on the session: “Overall, considering the amount of time we’ve had on track, we’ve made good progress with the No. 44. I think it’s in the ballpark, now if we can fine-tune how the car behaves we can get to a predictable car for the race.”

In the No. 45, Johannes had a shortened qualifying session after the crew discovered and repaired a leak in the hydraulic system just prior to the session. “It’s going to be a challenge to get to a race setup for us by tomorrow,” he said. “The short amount of track time before this race has definitely made it harder for us. We’ll just have to see what we can do between now and the morning warmup.”

van Overbeek and Pechnik will start tomorrow’s 2 hour and 45 minute race, which begins at 8 p.m. CDT on May 12. They’ll be joined by co-drivers Wolf Henzler (No. 45) and Seth Neiman (No. 44).

During the race, follow the team’s progress on the Lizard blog, at www.lizardms.com. American Le Mans Radio coverage and live timing and scoring are at www.americanlemans.com. The race will be broadcast at 1 p.m. May 13, EDT on CBS Sports, the first of five straight Series events on the CBS network.

About Flying Lizard Motorsports
Founded in 2003, the Sonoma, Calif-based Flying Lizard team is competing in its third season of sports car racing with the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). The team is running two Porsche 911 GT3 RSRs–the No. 44 and the No. 45–in the 10 race ALMS season in North America.

The Flying Lizard squad finished second in GT2 in the 2004 ALMS drivers’ and team championships and third in 2005. In 2005, the team also enjoyed a hard-earned podium finish at their first competition in the historic 24 Heures du Mans race in Le Mans, France.

Flying Lizard is sponsored by several leading technology companies. PortalPlayer, based in San Jose, Calif., is a leading supplier of semiconductor, firmware and software solutions for personal media players and secondary display-enabled notebook computers. iPass, based in Redwood Shores, Calif., provides trusted connectivity services that help enterprises maximize their return on investment in workforce mobility. ShoreTel, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., provides IP telephony solutions and is the fastest growing IP PBX company in the world. eSilicon, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., designs and manufactures custom integrated circuits for the world’s leading electronics companies.

The team is managed by six principals: drivers Johannes van Overbeek, Lonnie Pechnik and Seth Neiman; chief engineer Craig Watkins; crew chief Tommy Sadler; and team manager Eric Ingraham. Visit the team website at www.lizardms.com.