Not Exactly A Day At The Beach
Enjoying a great week and a well set-up car wasn't enough for Guy Cosmo and Ed Brown in the No. 02 Extreme Speed Motorsports Patrón Ferrari 458GT to make a charge to the front for Saturday's Tequila Patrón American Le Mans Series at Long Beach.

While Cosmo's teammate Ed Brown was turning in his fastest times of the week - nearly better than 3.5 seconds faster than his last visit to Long Beach - Cosmo could only watch as a slight error blossomed into a two lap deficit when the car wouldn't restart after minor contact with a tire barrier.

"I felt so bad for Ed," said Guy.  "He showed up so well prepared and excited for this race, and it showed as soon as he hit the track. He was immediately posting lap times over a second faster than his best laps from last year.  During the race he ran his fastest race-pace to-date with times 3.5 seconds faster than last year… until he made one little mistake lightly catching the tire barrier.  As luck would have it, the car wouldn't restart and he lost two laps trying to get the engine to fire." 

"It was really a shame," noted Guy, "because after I got in, the car was capable of running times equal to the pace of the leaders -  all the way to the checkered flag. We finished 9th, but I'm quite sure the No. 02 Extreme Speed Motorsports Patrón Ferrari 458GT was a top five car."

"Though it wasn't the result we were looking for," added Guy, "we still had a positive run at Long Beach.  We made great strides sorting the set up of the car throughout practice, in our qualifying session, and then again for the race. To me, this is extremely important given how little track time we get, and after losing the first hour of our only 2-hours of practice."

"Race results aside, I still loved every minute of it," laughed Cosmo. "It's still Long Beach and I'm telling you, there's nothing like pushing this 458 Ferrari around the streets of Long Beach and attacking it as hard as you can as you run between the walls. And even though we may have had challenges on-track, the event was an amazing success.  The energy and excitement was through the roof and there were tons of supporters cheering us on wearing the ESM / Patron Tequila colors. Next year will bring a better result - count on it!"

The American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón will take its traditional break for those teams preparing to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and return for Round 3, the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park, on July 9. The race will be shown live and in its entirety on ESPN3.com in the United States and internationally on americanlemans.com starting at 1:05 p.m. ET. ESPN2 will provide television coverage from 1 to 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 10.

Guy Cosmo, 2005 American Le Mans Series Rookie of the Year competed last season in the No. 02 Extreme Speed Motorsports Patron Ferrari. Cosmo is a race record-holder at Mid-Ohio (for fastest lap in the GTC series, which he set in 2009 in the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup). Cosmo has 28 starts in the American Le Mans Series, finishing in the top-five 18 times and has been on the winner’s podium twice. In addition to being an accomplished driver, Cosmo is also a highly sought-after driving instructor. Find out more about Guy Cosmo at http://www.guycosmo.com and follow Guy through the racing weekend on Twitter @guycosmo.