Park Place Motorsports will field three Porsche GT3s at the inaugural Grand-Am of the Americas at the new Circuit of the Americas (COTA).
A strong line up for the team pairs the only American factory Porsche driver and three time ALMS GT2 Champion Patrick Long with Patrick Lindsey in the #73 car, who scored six top twelve finishes in 11 Grand-Am starts in 2012.
“Daytona sort of gave me a good boost of confidence,” said Long. “Organizationally and from a performance standpoint, as the first official race as a team, we couldn’t have expected much more. We had a few hiccups during the race that took us out of contention, but I don’t feel our finishing position truly represented the potential we have. That’s when you want to get back out on the rack as soon as possible and compete with those teams that were fighting for the victory at the end.”
For their home race – Park Place Dealerships are based in Dallas – the team bring a three car squad. Chairman and managing owner of Vess Oil, Mike Vess, will return to the Park Place Porsche alongside racing specialist Mike Skeen, reuniting two of the team who took the #72 to 14th place at the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona.
Finally, Jason Hart will race alongside John McCutchen II in the #71 Porsche, which will have a special paint scheme to raise awareness for the American Heart Association’s Hands-Only CPR programme.
“We want HOCPR to be as common knowledge as 911 is to nearly every man, woman and child in the United States,” said McCutchen. “Hopefully, every fan watching us race will take note of the three simple steps to saving a life: call 911, push hard and fast in the center of the chest to the beat of Stayin’ Alive.”
Lindsey looks ahead; “it’ll be really nice to work out of that facility and experience a true international racetrack. We’re going into a new market as a racing series, but it’ll also be our hometown track since it’s just down the road from Park Place Motorsports headquarters in Dallas. Otherwise, I’ve never been to Austin, so I’m looking forward to going to the city as well as the racetrack. Being the first time going there, a win would be more special than ever. It’s like Indy last year. There will only ever be one inaugural winner for the GRAND-AM of the Americas. Your name will be at the top of the list of winners until the end of time.”
