Longtime Porsche client Flying Lizard Motorsports has had a change of allegiance.
Flying Lizard will ditch its traditional 911s for a pair Audi R8 LMS racers for the upcoming United SportsCar Championship. The R8 LMS has already had some success in sports car racing, including a win at the 2013 24 Hours of Daytona.
The LMS reportedly shares 50 percent of its parts with the road-going R8, including its 5.2-liter V-10 engine. However, the entire car is heavily modified for competition. One of the two Flying Lizard cars will get the team's signature number 45, while the other will be number 35.
Also signing on with Audi for the 2014 United SportsCar Championship is Paul Miller Racing, which will campaign a single car in the same GTD (Grand Touring Daytona) class as Flying Lizard. Both teams will begin testing at Sebring November 16.
United SportsCar Racing is the product of a merger of the two predominant U.S. sports car racing series, Grand Am and the American Le Mans Series. Cars will run in five classes, two for prototypes, and three for production-based cars.
The new classes seek to blend cars from the two predecessor series. The top Prototype (P) class will include ALMS P2, Daytona Prototype, and DeltaWing cars, while the Prototype Challenge (PC) class will be open to ALMS LMPC cars.
The top production-car category will be GT Le Mans (GTLM), which will consist of ALMS GTE-class cars. The GTD class the R8s will be racing in merges the Grand-Am GT and ALMS GTC classes. Finally, the Grand-Am GX class will carry over to the new series.
The United SportsCar Championship begins in January 2014 with the 24 Hours of Daytona. Check out our dedicated hub for more updates.
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