Lola sportscars continued to score podium positions in the fifth round of the 2006 American Le Mans Series at the all new Miller Motorsports Park circuit in Salt Lake City, Utah on Saturday evening.

Dyson Racing's pair of Lola B06/10 LMP1 cars finished in 3^rd and 4^th places in the category while Intersports Racing's B05/40 LMP2 chassis continues to head the LMP2 points table after they finished as runners-up.

The all-new 4.5 mile track near the salt flats of Utah saw plenty of action during the latest round of the series with Dyson continuing to be the main rivals of the works Audi LMP1 cars and the Penske Porsche LMP2 cars. Qualifying saw Butch Leitzinger place his blue and white Lola in a creditable 3rd place, negotiating the 24 turns of the Miller Motorsports Park in 2m22m.535s, just over half a second away from the 2^nd placed Audi of Allan McNish and Rinaldo Capello.

With the second entry of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith starting from 5^th place, the team were satisfied with a strong qualifying performance.

"The car is really good," confirmed Leitzinger.  "It has a nice balance and tomorrow we are going to have a nice scrap."

In the race, James Weaver had a terrific start and was running in 2^nd place to McNish's Audi R10 in the early running, after capitalising on an off-track moment for the other Audi R10 of Frank Biela.

After the pit stops and some bad luck behind slower GT traffic, Butch Leitzinger took the chequered flag in 3^rd place, heading home the Audi of Capello, who was delayed with a tyre problem. Weaver and Leitzinger have now cemented their 2^nd place in the drivers points standings and also remain just four behind Audi in the chassis manufacturers title chase.

The sister Dyson Lola-AER of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith ran in 3^rd position until its pit stop just after the hour mark when Smith handed over driving duties to Dyson, who brought the car home in 5^th place.

Both drivers turned some impressively fast lap times and Smith in particular was pleased with his opening stint, saying:

"I just tried to take it easy for the first couple of laps. We changed the car during the warm-up and so far it has been good. It's really great out there driving with the Audi guys and the Porsche guys. It's great fun."

Intersport Racing retained their lead at the head of the LMP2 drivers table by a single point after finishing in second place behind the Porsche Spyder of Sascha Maassen and Lucas Luhr. Liz Halliday started the race before handing over to Clint Field, who in turn pitted to hand back over to the Californian racer for the final stint. The AER powered Lola LMP2 has finished all of its 5 races this season in either 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd position, reinforcing the great reliability record of the Lola.

Highcroft Racing's Lola B01/60 finished in 5^th place in the LMP1 category. Duncan Dayton and Andy Wallace had a relatively trouble free run to the chequered flag although Wallace did have some interesting moments with his former team, Dyson Racing!

"I had a couple of close calls, said Wallace.  "I was trying to come into the pits once and I got squashed in a Dyson sandwich. And there was a car parked on pit exit when I was trying to come out of the pits, and I had to dodge him."

Autocon Motorsports similar Lola LMP1 car was classified as the last finisher with Bryan Willman and Michael Lewis suffering from tyre build-up problems in their front bodywork. The next race on the ALMS schedule is the Portland Grand Prix next Saturday evening.

RACE RESULTS

Pos  Class        Drivers                            Make                            Laps
 1.  P1   Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro           Audi R10 TDI                            65
 2.  P2   Sascha Maassen, Lucas Luhr            Porsche RS Spyder               65
 3.  P1   James Weaver, Butch Leitzinger        Lola B06/10 AER                 65
 4.  P1   Allan McNish, Rinaldo Capello         Audi R10 TDI                    65
 5.  P1   Guy Smith, Chris Dyson                Lola B06/10 AER                 64
 6.  P1   Duncan Dayton, Andy Wallace           Lola EX257 AER                  62
 7.  GT1  Darren Turner, Tomas Enge             Aston Martin DB9                62
 8.  GT1  Stephane Sarrazin, Andrea Piccini     Aston Martin DB9                61
 9.  P2   Liz Halliday, Clint Field, Jon Field  Lola B05/40 AER                 61
10.  GT1  Ron Fellows, Johnny O`Connell         Corvette C6.R                    61
11.  GT1  Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta         Corvette C6.R                           61
12.  GT2  Jaime Melo, Mika Salo                 Ferrari 430 GT                          59
13.  GT2  Patrick Long, Jorg Bergmeister        Porsche 911 GT3                 59
14.  GT2  Johannes van Overbeek, Wolf Henzler   Porsche 911 GT3                 59
15.  GT2  Mike Rockenfeller, Klaus Graf         Porsche 911 GT3                 59
16.  P2   Romain Dumas, Timo Bernhard           Porsche RS Spyder               58
17.  GT2  Scott Maxwell, David Brabham          Panoz Esperante                 58
18.  GT2  Bill Auberlen, Joey Hand              BMW E46 M3                      58
19.  GT2  Gunnar Jeannette, Tom Milner          Panoz Esperante                 58
20.  GT2  Seth Neiman, Darren Law               Porsche 911 GT3                 57
21.  GT2  Justin Marks, Bryan Sellers           BMW E46 M3                      56
22.  P1   Bryan Willman, Michael Lewis          Lola EX257 AER                   47

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