BOWMANVILLE, ON - As is often the case with the American Le Mans Series (ALMS), the racing at the 2013 edition of the Mobil 1 Sportscar Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville saw the lower classes providing the most excitement.

Specifically, it was the race for first in the GT class that provided the most thrills, with Corvette Racing’s  car number four being driven by Olivier Gavin and Tommy Milner holding off Dominik Farnbacher in the number 91 SRT Motorsports Viper. 

In fact, it took until the final string of curves—numbers 9, 10 and 11—on the final laps for Milner to finally solidify his lead after Farnbacher came close to overtaking the Corvette twice over the final two laps.

Team SRT can leave with its head held high finishing both second and third in its class and ahead of the other Corvette. That means with five races still to go, Team Corvette Racing now sits less than 20 points—just one short race win—ahead of SRT Motorsports.

Either way, it appears that we are seeing a bit of a return to the ALMS landscape of 10-12 years ago, when Vipers and Corvettes battled each round for top class honours both in North America and as part of the Le Mans Endurance Series in Europe.

As for the rest of the classes in the ALMS race, the number 6 Muscle Milk Racing HPD ARX-03c car piloted by Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf made it four straight wins at CTMP/Mosport for Graf, and three for Luhr. 

With the win, Team Muscle Milk extends its lead in the Team Championship to 44 points over Rebellion Racing, who didn’t attend the event. Drivers Luhr and Graf extended their lead by the same amount over Rebellion drivers Nick Hedfield and Neel Jani.

Second place overall went to a lower-classed P2 car, the number 551 HPD ARX-03b of Scott Tucker and Marino Franchitti, the brother of IndyCar star, Dario. They finished a lap ahead of third place finishers Scott Sharp and Guy Cosmo in the number 01 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD.

If there was one sore spot from the day’s racing action, it was the DeltaWing. The fan favourite car driven by Katherine Legge and Andy Meyrick failed once again to finish an ALMS race, retiring with fuel pump problems after 116 laps.

Other class winners on the day included Jonathan Bennett and Colin Braun in the number 05 CORE Autosports Oreca FLM09 in PC, and Cooper MacNeil and Jeoren Bleekemolen in the number 22 Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup in GTC.

The next race in the ALMS Championship goes August 11th at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI.