Conquest Long Beach race report

IMPRESSIVE PERFORMANCE FOR CONQUEST ENDURANCE AT LONG BEACH

#37 Conquest Endurance Morgan Judd: Martin Plowman, David Heinemeier Hansson

Photo by: Bob Heathcote

Long Beach, California – April 14th, 2012 – Conquest Endurance had an impressive day today at the Tequila Patron American Le Mans Series at Long Beach race which saw the team lead the most laps, set the fastest race lap, and dominate the LMP2 category until a last minute pit stop for a splash of fuel which dropped the #37 car into second position in class.

After a strange weekend that had no dry track time before the race, David Heinemeier Hansson took the green flag for his first ever street race in the third position and had the challenge of learning the track as he battled with the rest of the field. He immediately picked up a position at the start and by the second lap he made a pass for the lead. For the rest of his stint he turned an impressive performance pulling a significant gap to his competitors while setting the quickest lap times in the LMP2 category. After 49 minutes of hard racing he pitted and turned the controls of the Morgan-Nissan machine to teammate Martin Plowman.

Plowman continued with the race dominance as the clock ran down in the two-hour race and on lap 56 turned the quickest lap of the race with a time of 1m18.083s. Despite loosing some ground due to a couple of stop-and-go penalties, the British driver managed to maintain the lead and was headed to victory until he was forced to dive into the pits for a quick splash of fuel with only ten minutes to go, allowing the second place car to overtake him on the track. After a strong day that showed that the Conquest squad is ready to fight for the wins, Heinemeier and Plowman were forced to settle for a second place finish, giving them their second podium in as many races in the ALMS.

The Conquest Endurance team now heads back to their Indianapolis headquarters and they will have three weeks to prepare before the third round of the ALMS Series, the American Le Mans Monterey Presented by Patron which will take place May 12th at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California.

David Heinemeier Hansson Driver #37 Conquest Endurance / Morgan / Nissan “It’s probably the most frustrating second place that I’ve ever gotten in any race of any kind. I felt we had the car to win and be third overall, the car was really good and we had a very strong pace. So it’s frustrating that we had the issues that kept us from winning but at the same time its nice to know that the we have the pace and I’m sure that we’ll be fighting for the win at the next race.

Learning the track during the actual race wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought, I was able to get up to speed right away and having such a good car just really made it a lot easier for us.”

Martin Plowman Driver #37 Conquest Endurance / Morgan / Nissan “To finish second when your car is dominating the race is a blow. I have to say a big thank you to Thierry Bouvet my engineer and the whole team for giving us a great car. All weekend the car was very dialed in. The issue we had with the pit-lane speed limiter unfortunately cost us the race. We showed a lot of speed today so I really wanted to repay the team with the win. I can’t wait for Monterey, our first win is just around the corner. Today’s race is only going to make us even more determined”

Eric Bachelart Owner, Conquest Endurance “We had a very good car this weekend and we definitely should’ve won the race. The drivers and the crew did an outstanding job, unfortunately we had a couple of pit speed violations that made us lose time, but we proved how strong we can be and I’m very confident that we’ll win, this team has a lot of potential. Id like to thank Nissan North America and NISMO because they’ve done a great job with this engine and have been great to work with.”