Fourth Place Finish for ESM Patrón
during TUDOR Championship in Austin
Austin, Texas – Sept 20, 2014 – Extreme Speed Motorsports (ESM) finished fourth in the Lone Star Le Mans on Saturday afternoon at Circuit of the Americas (COTA). In what would be their final TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race of the season, Ed Brown and Johannes van Overbeek, co-drivers of the No. 2 Tequila Patrón Honda Performance Development ARX-03b (HPD) were one spot shy of a podium finish today.

Brown started the race from the fifth position. It took two attempts for a green flag start. At the scheduled race start, the leaders jumped the starter cue and series officials restarted the race. As the field settled into a steady pace, Brown maintained a fifth-place run.

Brown battled the competition and fought hard for his track position during his 33-minute stint. He pitted under green based on the team’s race strategy for a driver change, fuel and tires. When co-driver van Overbeek climbed into the Honda prototype for his stint, he was ranked seventh in the Prototype class.

In typical van Overbeek fashion, he set his focus to the front of the field and began to gain positions. In 71 minutes, approximately 12 laps, van Overbeek reached a race-high of third in class. He maintained a top-five run for the majority of his stint, more than an hour of the race.

In the closing 45 minutes, van Overbeek was hit by at GT-Daytona (GTD) competitor car which caused aerodynamic and body work damage to the back of the No. 2 Tequila Patrón Honda preventing it from running at optimal performance.

Brown and the entire ESM team now changes its focus to the FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) and the 6 Hours of Circuit of the Americas. Brown will co-drive the No. 30 Tequila Patrón HPD with Scott Sharp and Ryan Dalziel for the six-hour endurance event.

On Saturday morning, Extreme Speed Motorsports announced its entry into the FIA WEC 6 Hours of Shanghai. The Florida-based team entered both its Tequila Patrón-sponsored HPD prototypes in the LMP2 class for the Nov. 2 race at China’s Shanghai International Circuit. In order to prepare both Tequila Patrón-sponsored HPDs to meet FIA WEC regulations, ESM will not compete in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship’s season finale – Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in October.