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Muscle Milk and BMW take ALMS wins

The Muscle Milk Lola-Aston Martin was a dominant overall winner of the American Le Mans Series' two-hour Long Beach race, while Joey Hand and Dirk Muller came out on top for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-run BMW squad in the ultra-competitive GT field

Lucas Luhr attacked and passed the polesitting Dyson Lola-Mazda during the opening lap, and although Chris Dyson stayed on the Aston-powered car's tail at first, Muscle Milk was soon striding away, with Luhr able to hand over to team-mate Klaus Graf with a comfortable lead, which Graf extended to a minute before the race ended under yellow following a GTC crash.

In GT, Hand made an early break by passing a couple of LMPC tailenders to give himself a buffer over the chasing pack. But this disappeared when Paul Gentilozzi crashed his Jaguar to bring out the first caution of the event five minutes in.

Shortly after the restart, Bill Auberlen in the second BMW lost third in class to Patrick Long's Flying Lizard Porsche, and was passed by several more cars while wrong-footed. As he tried to regain momentum, Auberlen tangled with Tommy Milner's Corvette and spun in the fountain section. It took a painfully long time to get the car turned and ready to resume - and just as he pulled away, Auberlen inadvertently badly blocked his class-leading team-mate, who was about to put him a lap down.

That allowed Corvette's Oliver Gavin and Long's Porsche to pass the BMW, but Hand reclaimed the lead shortly afterwards with an amazing third-to-first move as the leaders lapped the GTC traffic.

Long struck back a few laps later, repassing the BMW, only to then slide into the wall while dicing with Scott Sharp's Extreme Speed Ferrari, which had just pitted.

With Long's Porsche too badly damaged to continue, Muller was left with a relatively peaceful run to the finish ahead of the Gavin/Jan Magnussen Corvette. Jaime Melo and Toni Vilander brought the Risi Ferrari through to third from the back of the grid after a qualifying incident. Further back, Bruno Junqueira and Cristiano da Matta achieved a breakthrough sixth in the RSR Jaguar.

Gunnar Jeanette and Ricardo Gonzalez (Core) defeated Intersport's Tomy Drissi and Kyle Marcelli to take LMPC honours and third overall. The Black Swan car of Jeroen Bleekemolen and Bill Pappas clinched the GTC win again.

Results - 83 laps:

Pos  Cl   Drivers              Team/Car                    Time/Gap
 1.  P1   Luhr/Graf            Muscle Milk Lola-Aston  2h01m23.764s
 2.  P1   Dyson/Smith          Dyson Lola-Mazda           + 24.624s
 3.  PC   Jeannette/Gonzalez   Core ORECA                  + 2 laps
 4.  PC   Marcelli/Drissi      Intersport ORECA            + 2 laps
 5.  GT   Muller/Hand          BMW                         + 2 laps
 6.  GT   Gavin/Magnussen      Corvette                    + 2 laps
 7.  GT   Melo/Vilander        Risi Ferrari                + 2 laps
 8.  GT   Henzler/Sellers      Falken Porsche              + 3 laps
 9.  PC   Lux/Julian           Genoa ORECA                 + 3 laps
10.  GT   Beretta/Milner       Corvette                    + 3 laps
11.  PC   Bennett/Montecalvo   Core ORECA                  + 4 laps
12.  GT   Junqueira/da Matta   RSR Jaguar                  + 4 laps
13.  GT   Auberlen/Werner      BMW                         + 4 laps
14.  GT   Law/Neiman           Flying Lizard Porsche       + 5 laps
15.  GTC  Pappas/Bleekemolen   Black Swan Porsche          + 6 laps
16.  GT   Brown/Cosmo          Extreme Speed Ferrari       + 6 laps
17.  GTC  Sweedler/Keen        Alex Job Porsche            + 6 laps
18.  PC   Figge/Maroney        PR1 Mathiasen ORECA         + 6 laps
19.  GTC  Potter/Stanton       Magnus Porsche              + 7 laps
20.  GT   Pastorelli/Schwager  West Lamborghini            + 8 laps
21.  GTC  Ham/Blackett         JDX Porsche                + 12 laps

Retirements:

     GT   Sharp/van Overbeek   Extreme Speed Ferrari        70 laps
     GTC  von Moltke/Gaughan   TRG Porsche                  70 laps
     GT   Miller/Maassen       Miller Porsche               68 laps
     P2   Tucker/Bouchut       Level 5 Lola-Honda           45 laps
     GTC  Ende/Pumpelly        TRG Porsche                  36 laps
     GT   Bergmeister/Long     Flying Lizard Porsche        31 laps
     GT   Jones/Gentilozzi     RSR Jaguar                    2 laps
     GTC  Curtis/Sofronas      GMG Porsche                   2 laps
     P2   Tucker/Diaz          Level 5 Lola-Honda            0 laps
     PC   Nicolosi/Boon        Performance Tech ORECA        0 laps

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