The Mazda's have made progress all year and will be on their home track -- is the week they break through?

LAKEVILLE, Ct — In basketball they say that the home court advantage is worth 10 points today’s questions is: Is it worth one second on a race track in the ALMS series — that’s the difference between victory and second place for the Chris Dyson’s Lola Mazda LMP2 race at the last race in Utah where Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz win their fourth straight class win to finish the first half of the season undefeated.

But the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park is like the start of a new season for the series with a nearly six week layoff due to the 24 Hours of Le Mans that was held June 12-13.

Even Fernandez and Diaz know that they will have to be on the top of their game to continue their winning ways and that will be no easy task given both the layoff and the fact that the Lime Rock track is the “home court” for the Poughkeepsie, NY based Dyson team, about an hour away from the Lime Rock facility.

Notes team owner Fernandez,”  We expect an all-out battle with the Mazdas Saturday. This is their first year with this car. They have been making steady progress, and Salt Lake City is a good example. We had a great battle and we took the [class] win by just half-a-second.

“This is the home track for Dyson Racing so I know they will be doing everything they can to win here. For us, we have a year of experience with our car and that is a big plus. Our expectations are high each and every race weekend and that’s a great feeling.”

The Dyson Team’s Chris Dyson and Guy Smith are second in the driver points race behind Fernandez and Diaz while teammates Butch Leitzinger and Marino Franchitti, who had the near miss in Utah, are in third place.

Guy Smith is eying a victory at Lime Rock this weekend.

In the LMP1 class, Patrón Highcroft Racing Acura has the class lead with drivers David Brabham (a member of the Peugeot driving team that won at the 24 Hours of Le Mans) and Scott Sharp also leading in the driver category. They are being chased by theor sister car from de Ferran Motorsports driven by Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud, also in the second place in the driver standings.

The GT1 category has seemingly run out of cars with the retirement of the Corvettes though we will have to see who shows up for qualifying at Lime Rock. The Vette team has moved to the GT2 class for the rest of the season but won’t debut the new car until the Mid Ohio ALMS race in August.

GT2 should be a total donneybrook with the Porsches and Ferraris going head-to-head again. The Ferraris were dominate at Le Mans where Jaime Mello lead the Risi Competizione Ferrari to victory and the Ferraris took nine of the first 10 spots in the GT2 class. But in the states it is Patrick Long and Jorg Bergmeister in their Flying Lizard Motorsports Porche that have a 21 point lead over the Mello Piere Kaffer Risi Ferrari. It will be interesting to see whether the impetus from the 24 Hour win carries over in the ALMS series for the Ferrari team or if the Porsche empire will strike back with another ALMS victory.

Qualifying is Friday afternoon with the race set for Saturday.