St. Pete: LG Motortsports race report

Gigliotti wins the pole, finishes fourth

Detroit -- April 1, 2006 LG Motorsports put the #28 ProLong Tube Headers C6 Corvette, driven by Lou Gigliotti on the pole for Saturday's round two of the SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT Series in St. Petersburg. Gigliotti, went on to lead the first 16 laps of the race, but later fought multiple battles with the eventual winner, #66 Lawson Aschenbach, and the #1 and #16 Cadillacs of Andy Pilgrim and Johnny O'Connell.

"I got a good start and was able to steer clear of a lot of the early battling going on behind me," commented three-time former World Challenge Champion, Lou Gigilotti. I heard the #5 car was in trouble early and could see the #66 car was shadowing me. I felt if I could control the pace of the race, it would force hard racing back in the pack. By midway though, the #66 Porsche was forcing me deep and the Cadillac pulled into the mix."

"The Porsche was able to get by me," continued Lou, "but couldn't hold onto it in the next turn and I regained the lead. But the Cadillacs also got by the Porsche-- and I knew we were late enough in the race that they were going to attack. The battle with the Porsche had let its toll on our tires and the Cadillacs got by."

"I'm pleased with our performance and we'll take the fourth place and head to Long Beach," smiled Lou. "I'm just pleased with the performance of the LG Motorsports crew. These guys are putting everything they've got into the LG Motorsports Corvettes and giving us great cars to race. I think the world of my guys."

Doug Peterson was having a strong run in the #87 3 Dimensional Services Corvette C6 until he had a water pump fail on lap 19. The former Star Mazda Series champion qualified ninth for Saturday's race and finished 18th.

"I had a great car," said Peterson. "I'm pretty sure we could have finished in the top 10 had the pump not let go. Having never seen the St. Pete street course, this was a pretty intense weekend for me. But I think we have a lot to be proud of and once again, the crew put a good car under me. The pump failure is just one of those things."

"We'll have Tomy Drisi in the car at Long Beach," continued Doug, "so I know he'll have a quick car to work with. He's won there and Lou's had great results too, so I'm pretty excited about the car's and Tomy's chances." Qualifying 20th left Claudio Burtin [#26 LG Motorsports Corvette C6] with his work cut out for him. He got an excellent start and was working his way through the field when he got grid locked by an incident when Mike McCann's #82 Viper got into Skip Sauls #99 Viper momentarily closing off the turn 10 section of the track.

"I struggled a bit with the car in practice," said Claudio "and due to our practice times we had to qualify with the slower group. But the car was quick and I knew once we got racing, I'd be able to move up."

"I got a good start and I was getting settled in," Claudio added, "then all of sudden I see in the apex of turn 10 that the two Vipers got into each other and blocked the track. I lost a lot of time. When we finally broke clear I had lost site of the pack."

"All considered, I'm pleased with the 14th place finish," said Burtin. "We picked up six places and I'm sure if not for the lost time, we'd have picked up more. The guys have the car going in the right direction, we're fast and we can head to Long Beach and continue building our program. The LG Motorsports guys did a great job."

-lgm