Five years back, Scott Tucker had been a private equity investor with a desire for automobiles. Currently, while he conditions to take on the American Le Mans Series Petit Le Mans championship race at Road Atlanta, he is doing so having a multitude of wins through the 2011 season that have already secured the Level 5 Motorsports team with the Le Mans Prototype 2 class championship and positioned them at No. Two in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup series.
For Tucker, this year’s season signifies the next step of motorsports, a fitting embodiment of the very notion behind Level 5 Motorsports. “Five is my favorite number,” Tucker says. “It was always my number in all the sports I played through high school and college.”
But it wasn’t until later in life that the number five really listed success for Tucker; as he carried on his private equity investment career, he read a novel on management that described a “level 5 candidate” as somebody who could take a company one stage further.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t until even later that the number five meant top-of-the-podium finishes and international success for Tucker. And incidentally, he might happen to be the very “level 5″ who made his motorsports company a success. He began the business in ’08, when he was just two years into his professional racing career at age 44. Although he didn’t have much experience, he had enough talent to fill a professional driver’s seat and a wealth of knowledge about the professional racing industry. He quickly joined up with Christophe Bouchut, one of the most successful endurance racers in the world, who became his mentor and co-driver. From there, Tucker has made careful, precise decisions regarding who drives his team’s cars and what cars they drive.
“That’s the whole genesis behind Level 5 [Motorsports], that everybody on our team, were trying to push it to the next level,” Tucker said. “We only hire and empower people within our organization who are ‘level 5′ candidates.
“It really came out of a management book, but it’s the blood that runs through our team,” he said.
Tucker has changed cars frequently, his most recent acquisition being an HPD ARX-01g cost-capped chassis in the LMP2 class. Last weekend, he drove a brand new Porsche 996 Turbo for the Sports Car Club of America’s National Championship Runoffs and won. The HPD ARX-01g made a stellar debut at the American Le Mans Series Monterey earlier this month at Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway. Following his theme, Tucker scours the industry for the next greatest car with the most potential to deliver another level of horsepower and control. He ordered the first two ARX-01g models off the line.
He also fills his team roster with the most experienced, proven quality drivers in the world, but there’s also a strategic element. When Tucker was developing himself as a next-level driver, he relied heavily on Bouchut to be his lead driver, scoring points while Tucker took advantage of the practice time in race situations. Now, he’ll enter Petit Le Mans with Luis Diaz and Marino Franchitti, both LMP2 veterans with experience in HPD ARX models.
It might have been a bit of leftover high school superstition, or it might have been a management book-or it might have been Scott Tucker’s natural inclination to push the boundaries of his abilities, but the meaning behind Level 5 Motorsports has never been as true as in the 2011 season
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Last week, Scott Tucker-owned Level 5 Motorsports announced the addition of Marino Franchitti to its driver lineup before this weekend’s Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta. Franchitti will join Tucker and fellow driver Luis Diaz in driving the No. 55 Microsoft Office-sponsored entry for the enduro, a 1,000-mile/10-hour race.
Franchitti is the latest addition to Tucker’s superteam of motorsports competitors, that’s established throughout the Level 5 Motorsports team’s three years of existence. Franchitti might be especially handy in driving the brand new Level 5 entry, a LMP2-class Honda Performance Development prototype developed in conjunction with Wirth Research. Prior to joining Level 5, Franchitti had raced essentially every iteration of HPD prototypes, like the original ARX-01a with Andretti Green Racing in 2007 and Highcroft’s 2010 ALMS championship winner ARX-01c as well as its ARX-01e, which took 2nd place overall at the 12 Hours of Sebring a few months ago. Franchitti this year is going to be seeking his 3rd consecutive Petit Le Mans class victory.
The elite Level 5 team started out when Tucker entered the world of professional motorsports in 2006 at 44. What he was lacking in experience he made up for in raw ability, quickly ascending the motorsports rankings. Early on, he joined up with Christophe Bouchut, an endurance racing expert, who acted as his mentor and co-driver. Bouchut is probably the most successful endurance drivers in the field and a past champion of the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. He has also won three Porsche Carrera Cup France championships, three FIA GT titles and an FFSA GT championship. He is the only triple FIA GT champion in history. Since the Level 5 Motorsports team began in 2008, Bouchut has co-driven with Tucker and been integral in the team’s success. With his wealth of experience and skill in controlled speed, Bouchut’s role as lead driver has allowed Tucker to develop his own skills, contributing to the depth of the Level 5 racing team. Within the 2010 season, Bouchut earned his 100th career victory.
Joao Barbosa, another Level 5 Motorsports standout started his racing career in his native Porto, Portugal nearly Three decades ago. He won back-to-back kart championships in 1988-1989 and went on to win the Portuguese Formula Ford championship in 1994 and the Italian Formula Alfa Boxter Championship in 1995. In 2001, he joined the Grand-Am Sports Car Series and competed in the GT class until he joined the Brumos Racing team in a Daytona prototype in 2006. After four seasons there, he joined Action Express Racing and won the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 2010. In 2010, he also made seven starts in the ALMS for Extreme Speed Motorsports in the GT2 class.
Luis Diaz, the 3rd part to this weekend’s Petit Le Mans bid, hails from Mexico City, Mexico. He ran in the Toyota Atlantic and Indy Lights Series from 1999-2003 prior to the move to Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series in 2004 when he co-drove the No. 1 car with former Champ Car competitor Scott Pruett for Chip Ganassi Racing. In 2007, he moved into the ALMS, driving an LMP2 Lola B06/43-Acura for Fernandez Racing. The pairing finished sixth in the LMP2 standings that year and won the class championship in 2009. Diaz made his Level 5 debut this year at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, an effective start to the season, and his LMP2 experience will likely be very helpful at Petit Le Mans using the new car.
Ryan Hunter-Reay has been off the grid for a lot of this year’s season as Tucker and crew have been centered on the ALMS and LMP2 class, but he has been an important reason for the Level 5 team’s overall success. He will be a regular in the IZOD IndyCar Series for Andretti Autosport, where he nabbed his second win at Iowa Speedway not too long ago. Hunter-Reay helped the No. 95 Level 5 Motorsports BMW Riley to a third-place finish in the 2010 Rolex 24 at Daytona.
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