Located on California’s coastline in beautiful Monterey, Laguna Seca is a 2.24-mile road course famous for its “Corkscrew”.  The American Le Mans Series format for this venue is a six-hour race into the dusk. Teams and drivers will be defining the limits in an all out race of attrition.

Merchant Services Racing driver, 22-year old Canadian Kyle Marcelli has two goals, a pole position in qualifying and a victory in the race. Marcelli knows he has the tools and the team behind him; it will just come down to being smart, maintaining a quick race pace and executing perfect pit stops and driver changes.

“Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is a beautiful race circuit surrounded by some of the country’s most amazing landscape.” Said Kyle Marcelli “Personally, I really enjoy racing here. Last year we had a good race car and earned the pole position, this year the grid is more competitive but we will be looking to do the same.”

Kyle Marcelli will be behind the wheel of the #8 Merchant Services Racing LMPC co-driving with England’s Dean Stirling and American Lucas Downs. Be sure to keep an eye out as the team arrives this weekend branding a new livery colour of white, black and yellow.

You can watch all the action from the American Le Mans Series in Monterey on ESPN3.com and ESPN2. For Canadian fans, tune into Rogers Sportsnet or AmericanLeMans.com.

Kyle Marcelli would like to recognize his American Le Mans Series corporate partners:

MBRP Performance Exhaust Inc., Lafarge, Merchant Services Ltd., Braille Battery, Bell Racing, OGIO, Sparco

For the drivers of the American Le Mans Series, it was a race weekend that offered zero dry practice laps prior to taking the green flag for the two-hour sprint race.

Teams and drivers had a two-hour free practice session on Friday morning to learn the circuit and test set-ups. Unfortunately, it was under very wet conditions. For 22-year old Kyle Marcelli, he had no problems coming to grips with the circuit under the miserable conditions. Marcelli posted the fastest lap in the LMPC category which impressively was second fastest overall behind the Muscle Milk Honda LMP1 of Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf.

“If you ask me, I rather enjoyed it.” Said the Canadian racer Kyle Marcelli. “I’ve driven many permanent road courses in wet conditions but never a temporary street circuit. The car was very good under braking and on turn-in, I suffered most just trying to get the power down as the car has no traction control.”

American Le Mans Series qualifying is divided into a fifteen minute qualifying session per class beginning with the GT cars and ending with the Prototypes. For the first time in a long time, ALMS qualifying was cancelled as mixed weather conditions provided a dry track for GT and a wet track for Prototype. Race officials made the right call as this would have inverted the grid making for an unsafe race.

According to the rulebook, the starting grid was then based off overall point standings. Unfortunately, for the #8 Merchant Services Racing LMPC driven by Kyle Marcelli and Anthony Downs, this meant a back of the grid starting spot as a DNF at the first round in Sebring, Florida left them with zero points.

Race strategy for the #8 Merchant Services Racing LMPC appointed Anthony Downs behind the wheel to start the race with Kyle Marcelli in to take the checkered. For Anthony, this marked his first time racing on a temporary street course and in the American Le Mans Series.

140,000 fans were on their feet as thirty-five of the world’s most exotic sports cars and prototypes roared down lakeshore to take the green flag. Downs was P8 in class but running strong and clocking consistent lap times close to the leaders pace. However, struggling with a lack of rear grip, Downs spun the car on the exit of turn six. Luckily avoiding the walls, Downs kept the car in the race but fell two laps down. Soon thereafter, it was about the forty-five minute mark in the two-hour race when the first and only caution came out. Merchant Services Racing as well as most teams utilized this caution to pit for a driver change. The team opted to take only fuel. Marcelli was now behind the wheel but two laps down. Racing out of the pits and back onto the circuit, Marcelli found himself positioned behind the LMPC class leader of Ryan Dalziel. Consistently clicking off fast laps, Marcelli past Dalziel getting one lap back then charged through to P4 in class. Everyone on the Merchant Services Racing team including Marcelli was praying for another caution which would allow them to hopefully get another lap back and challenge for a podium, however the race remained green until the end. The #8 Merchant Services Racing LMPC driven by Marcelli crossed the stripe P4 in class with the second fastest race lap.

“All in all, it was a good weekend for us in the #8. Although we don’t have any pretty hardware to show for it, we certainly proved to have winning pace. We’ll just have to put it all together in the next one.” Said Kyle Marcelli.

Next up is the American Le Mans Series Monterey Presented by Patron. Held at the beautiful Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, this 6-hour endurance race will be a spectacle for the fans. Be sure to watch on May 13th 2012 at 5:00pm EST on ESPN2, Canadian fans can watch all the action on Rogers Sports Net.

Race Driver Kyle Marcelli is supported by: MBRP Performance Exhaust, Lafarge, Braille Battery, Merchant Services Ltd, Barrie Trim & Mouldings Inc, Pfaff Automotive Partners, The Garage, OGIO and Larche Communications Inc.

For information on the American Le Mans Series visit: www.americanlemans.com

“My father built the company on a passion for motorsports and it gives me great pride to continue this racing legacy today,” said Christopher Pfaff, president and CEO, Pfaff Automotive Partners. “We are very excited about the upcoming race season and have great expectations for the team we have put together with Fiorano Racing and up-and-coming driver, Kyle Marcelli behind the wheel”.

Pfaff has enlisted the top players in the industry to build a winning team. With racing veteran Fiorano Racing building the GT3 race car and Kyle Marcelli as lead driver, the Pfaff Castrol Motorsports team is poised to be a leading contender in the upcoming race season.

At just 21 years of age, Kyle Marcelli has established himself as one of North America’s rising stars in professional racing around the world. Marcelli began racing at the age of 11 and has become a major player in the Canadian racing scene with 12 wins, 15 pole positions and 46 podium finishes with just 84 races under his belt.

“I’m really excited to be driving for Pfaff in this year’s Porsche GT3 Cup Canada. This marks a great opportunity for Pfaff Automotive to build on their already popular brand and successful auto-racing heritage,” said race driver, Kyle Marcelli. “For me, this serves as a wonderful platform to build a relationship with Porsche. Together our goals are quite simple, win races and sell cars.”

The GT3 Cup series is already gaining considerable notoriety amongst the Canadian racing community and is now backed by Porsche Canada. It was developed in conjunction with the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) and Porsche Motorsport North America (PMNA) and is designed to develop new drivers and prepare them for competition in the American Le Mans Series.

Pfaff has built a strong heritage in Canadian motorsport, having raced in various series over the years including the Porsche Turbo Cup Series, the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Car in the Speed World Challenge Series and most recently the Canadian Touring Car Series.

About Pfaff Automotive Partners

Pfaff Automotive Partners, a leading Ontario automotive retailer, was founded in 1964 by H.J. Pfaff as a premium Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen dealership. The company has experienced considerable growth over the years, adding McLaren and Toyota to its select brand offering and today is one of the largest dealer groups in the Canadian automotive market. The company also operates Pfaff Tuning, Pfaff Leasing, Pfaff Autoworks and Pfaff Outlet to provide a comprehensive service portfolio to its customers.

For more information, please visit www.pfaffauto.com.

For over fifteen years MBRP Inc. has been delivering performance enthusiasts the most in power, product quality and customer responsiveness. It all began with the now famous B&B Eliminator, which soon achieved the status as the best selling performance snowmobile silencer of all time. Starting from little more than a vision and an absolute passion for all things performance MBRP Inc. is now at the forefront of performance exhaust technology. Through manufacturing and marketing expertise, the MBRP design team has developed a line of performance diesel exhaust products that has made the rest of the industry take notice, and rush to catch up. Headquartered out of Huntsville, Ontario, MBRP Inc. has locations all across North America.

For 2012 MBRP Inc. has partnered with Race Driver Kyle Marcelli as he campaigns another season at the pinnacle level of sports car and prototype racing globally, the American Le Mans Series. Remarkably, Marcelli is the only full-time Canadian driver in the series and competes against some of the world’s best.

Together MBRP Inc. and Kyle Marcelli have outlined a strategic program to achieve maximum visibility, brand awareness, customer relations and B2B opportunities for MBRP Performance Exhaust Inc.

“From the very first time we met at a track event I could tell Kyle was a business man in a race suit. I really look forward to working directly with Kyle and his team to help bring the MBRP Performance Exhaust brand to the race car enthusiast. I have no doubt Kyle will represent the brand well and take every opportunity to forward this program in a professional manner to the benefit of both Kyle Marcelli Racing and MBRP Inc.” Stated MBRP President Martin Barkey 

“I’m looking forward to being a face for MBRP throughout 2012. The company is lead by Martin and Ginger Barkey, a very driven couple who are wonderful people to work with. Together, we’ve outlined a program for 2012 which will see MBRP key customers out to four ALMS events on the schedule. As our relationship grows, we have some big ideas for the future. I think together we can only add to the brands global awareness and success.” Said Race Driver Kyle Marcelli

For more information on MRPP Performance Exhaust Inc. visit: www.mbrp.com

After starting with such promise, it was about three laps until the teams first scheduled pit stop when Marcelli suffered a broken steering rack at the apex of the extremely fast and bumpy turn one. Marcelli limped the car back to pit-lane where the experienced crew took the car behind the wall for repair.

Loosing little time, the team had replaced the damaged steering rack and Marcelli returned to the track to test the repair. After a quick two lap’s around the 3.7-mile circuit, Marcelli concluded that everything was ok and made a scheduled pit stop to get co-driver Dean Stirling behind the wheel.

After completing only about five laps, Stirling unfortunately found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time as two GT cars made contact in front of him in turn seventeen. With little time to react and no where to go, Dean had made contact which ended the race and any chance of victory for the #8 Merchant Services Racing LMPC driven by Kyle Marcelli, Lucas Downs and Dean Stirling.

“The team had been working around the clock the last four-weeks since the launch of Merchant Services Racing. Following the announcement of the driver line-up, everyone was eager to get the program underway. Our Sebring result was in no way a reflection of the teams preparation, hard work and passion. It was simply circumstances out of anyone’s control that put us out. It’s a shame to start the season with zero points but I know it’s made everyone more hungry for victory in Long Beach.” Said Merchant Services Racing Driver Kyle Marcelli.

Next up is the Tequila Patron American Le Mans Series at Long Beach April 13th to 14th 2012. Tune in to ESPN2 at 7:30PM EST and watch the world’s most exotic GT and Prototype sports cars race their way around the 1.7-mile street course in downtown Long Beach, California.

Race Driver Kyle Marcelli is supported by: Lafarge, MBRP Performance Exhaust, Braille Battery, Merchant Services Ltd, Barrie Trim & Mouldings Inc, Pfaff Automotive Partners, Simcoe Building Centre, The Garage, OGIO and 104.1 The Dock.

For information on the American Le Mans Series visit: www.americanlemans.com