September 15, 2011 – Salinas, Calif. – Flying Lizard landed at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca this week for the eighth race of the American Le Mans Series season. The Lizard driver lineup for the six-hour race on Sat., Sept. 17 is Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long in the No. 45 and Seth Neiman and Marco Holzer in the No. 44. Bergmeister and Long are sixth in the ALMS GT drivers championship with 51 points, Neiman is ninth and Holzer is tenth. Dirk Mueller and Joey Hand of the No. 56 BMW lead with 124 points. Flying Lizard is fifth in the team championship. There are 55 points remaining: 25 at Laguna Seca and 30 at Petit Le Mans.

Saturday’s race has returned to its normal September timeslot this year; in 2010 the event was held in May. For the Northern California based Lizards, the 2.238 mile, 11-turn Laguna Seca circuit is the closest to a home track on the ALMS schedule. Flying Lizard chief engineer Craig Watkins discussed setting up the Porsches, “One of the biggest setup challenges here is that the track has very low mechanical grip and it’s hard to get the heat into the tires. The driver has to be more aggressive with the car during the period of poor handling while the tires come up. To help with this we’ll add downforce which will generate more heat and pressure in the tires and help performance in the fast turns. In the slow-speed turns like Turn 2 and Turn 11, the rear-engine 911s are especially good at getting the power down without invasive traction control or requiring that the driver be gentle on the throttle.”

Watkins continued, “The Porsches have historically been very reliable in the long distance races. Hopefully we’ve used up our bad luck this season and will have a solid result here with both Porsches. We aren’t in contention for the championship win, but need to put as many points on the board as we can to help Porsche in their hunt for the manufacturers’ title.”

Follow the Race
The six-hour ALMS Monterey Race gets the green flag Saturday Sept 17 at 1:30 pm PT. Broadcast on ESPN2 begins at 10:00 am PT on Sunday September 18. ESPN3.com will carry live coverage of qualifying and the race. American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón races are also broadcast live in Canada on Rogers SportsNet, in Europe on MotorsTV, and in the Middle East and Latin America on Fox. Check local TV listings for details. Outside of the U.S., the race will be available live at americanlemans.com/live.

Flying Lizard will broadcast the team radio live throughout the race; read the team race blog for frequent team updates at www.lizardms.com

About Flying Lizard Motorsports
Flying Lizard Motorsports has competed in the American Le Mans Series GT class since 2004. The team has finished in the top three in the ALMS GT drivers’ and team championships every year since 2004. In 2010, Flying Lizard No. 45 drivers Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long won a hard-fought battle for the GT drivers’ championship. In 2009 and 2008, the team swept all ALMS GT titles: drivers’ championship (Bergmeister and Long in 2009, Bergmeister and Wolf Henzler in 2008); Flying Lizard won the team championship; and Porsche won the manufacturer championship. In 2009, the Flying Lizard No. 44 Porsche also won the Michelin Green X Challenge championship.

Flying Lizard has also competed in the 24 Heures du Mans from 2005 through 2011, finishing third in 2005, fourth in 2006, sixth in 2008, and sixth in 2011.

The team is sponsored in the ALMS by Openwave Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: OPWV), a global software innovator delivering context-aware mediation and messaging solutions for communication service providers and eSilicon, a semiconductor company.

Visit the team website at www.lizardms.com. For the latest team racing apparel and Porsche gear visit the Flying Lizard stores online and in the paddock.

The privateer team is based in Sonoma, California.

# # #