Henzler Fastest In Combined SPEED GT Practice At Laguna

MONTEREY, Calif. (Oct. 14, 2005) – Germany’s Wolf Henzler finished up practice for Sunday’s SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT Championship 2005 finale at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in a familiar place, atop the time sheets.

Driving the No. 55 Applied Materials/Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, Henzler turned a succession of laps in the 1:30 range—the only driver to reach that milestone all day, finishing with a fastest time of 1:30.419 (89.105 mph) around the 2.238-mile, 11-turn circuit. The lap was faster than his existing qualifying lap record of 1:31.469, set in 2004.

Robin Liddell, who paced the opening practice session in his No. 66 AXA Financial/PFAFF Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, was second fastest on the day, with a lap of 1:31.001 (88.535 mph) in the afternoon session.

The Porsche duo bodes well for the marque’s hopes in the Manufacturers’ Championship Presented by RACER Magazine. Porsche presently holds a three-point advantage over Cadillac.

Defending series Champion Tommy Archer was third fastest in the No. 1 c3controls/3R-Racing Dodge Viper after turning a 1:31.010 (88.526 mph) in the afternoon session. Archer is currently eight points behind Championship leader Andy Pilgrim, who was the fastest of the XM/Mobil 1/Motorola/Bose Cadillac CTS-Vs in fourth, turning a quick time of 1:31.104 (88.435 mph). Teammate Max Angelelli was fifth on the day, with a lap of 1:31.127 (88.412 mph).

Qualifying for Sunday’s finale, which will be live on SPEED Channel at 2 p.m. local (5 p.m. Eastern) is scheduled for Saturday morning at 9:55 a.m. (PDT). To follow live timing and scoring for every SCCA SPEED World Challenge session, please visit www.world-challenge.com.