"It's a pleasure to race with these guys"
Lonnie Pechnik of Flying Lizard Motorsport
By Margot Orenchuk
Photos courtesy Margot Orenchuk 
BOWMANVILLE, Ontario (August 14, 2004) --Lonnie Pechnik of Flying Lizard Motorsports finally, and I do mean finally, sat down with RFM to do a much anticipated interview. (2nd in a series). He’s the quiet one of the 4 drivers; but he blew everyone at Mosport away the past weekend (along with erasing and rewriting the GT qualifying record) by grabbing the GT pole.

Lonnie pilots the #44 Flying Lizard machine alongside Seth Neiman, whom he also mentors/coaches in the Speed World Challenge series, although this is his own first full-time year as a pro driver. In addition, it’s his first year as a Team Principal. I’m happy to report he’s handling it all with Grace Under Pressure – and he’s just as happy about the #45 Lizard car’s success as if he was driving the car himself. A true gentleman and sportsman, Lonnie personifies what it means to be a Team Player in an arena where all too often egos overshadow common sense and decency. I hope you enjoy as much as I did spending a few moments hearing from Lonnie.

Margot Orenchuk: What was your first impression of Sebring as you drove in? Did you get a chance to drive around the track at all and visit with some of the fans?

Lonnie Pechnik: I had never raced there before; I had heard of all the stories – but I had been there only as a spectator. I had never seen that many people at a racetrack for a Sports Car race. Driving around the track, there were a lot of people, lined up 10 deep. I think we got to Sebring on the Tuesday. I didn’t get to those areas only whispered about.

MO: How amazed are you at the success the Lizards are enjoying right out of the gate this year?

LP: Honestly, we are surprised. I had thought that Alex Job would be, would not make as many mistakes as they have. They have had some incredible bad luck this year. And they have made some errors. It’s clear that their drivers’ line-up is very strong. There is no doubt about it. They are consistently the fastest cars out on the track. So, it’s a question of for us to be able to put together the results that we have, has been unexpected. It’s been very nice, we have had our share of the breaks; no doubt. We have had very good strategy; we run good pace. We have good cars that will run the distance, and we keep the tires under the car. But, Alex Job is coming back at us; there is no doubt about that. If we can get enough of an advantage over them, to survive the rest of the season, that would be great!

MO: How is Seth developing? (Seth Neiman, Lonnie’s teammate, only ran 3 pro races before the start of the 2004 ALMS season)

LP: Seth is combining seat time here and now he is doing the Touring Car programme (in Speed World Challenge, #31 BMW) I think he is going to progress quickly, and we want him to take time to drive.

MO: Is he surprising himself?

LP: You know, he is very hard on himself! He expects himself to do better. It’s the mark of being a really good racecar driver that you are never really content about what you do on the track or your performance. You know you can always do better, and you always want to try to do better. He’s a little hard on himself, and we have to make him realize where he is relative to where he was!

MO: Who are you having the most fun racing against?

LP: I tell you, all of the teams are really good. I’ve actually had some really good battles with Patrick (Long) in the Racer’s Group car; everybody is really heads up, they are all professionals so there is nothing that is done stupidly, everyone races clean. It’s really a pleasure to race with these guys. You know they are not going to do anything, you know, when you get with some of the guys that are not as quick or less experienced, sometimes you just don’t have any idea what is going to happen. You just don’t get that with these guys.

MO: How is dealing with the traffic? Is it different than you thought it would be? (Lonnie comes from a single-seater racing background)

LP: No, it’s tough. The prototypes come up so quickly, and you are so focused on your performance, and taking time out, and maximizing the car, the prototypes show up and just trying to get them around without losing too much time is always a challenge. The GTS cars are always tough because they are not as fast as the prototypes, but they are fast enough that they need to get by, so that makes it even tougher, because they don’t have a big speed differential; so they can’t just stove it in there and get out of the way, so you have to work around them, too. Some of the P2 cars are like that, less HP but man, through the corners they are great! So they can hold you up a little sometimes, but you can hold them up in the corners – but on the straight-aways you are evenly matched.

MO: What has been the biggest shock about being a Team Principal that you have had to deal with? Is it a lot tougher than you had imagined?

LP: If you want to boil it down to what makes a team successful? It’s organization. I mean, how a team functions. Sure, the key components are the people; they are very important; but, you can have average people, and if you have a good organization behind them and good leadership from the top, you can do amazing things. Things tend not to get overlooked also with a strong organization because there are systems in place and it makes everyone’s job easier. So people are not overworked. As far as that, just trying to maintain the teams’ momentum and growing is the biggest challenge.

MO: Yes, Lizard Johannes keeps mentioning that in interviews I do with him, that your team strives to compete with the best to learn and grow.

LP: Indeed, it’s the way you have to grow.

MO: Lonnie, how are you finding racing full-time again? Is it everything you dreamed about? After all these years of teaching and waiting? Sure, it was what you dreamed of driving those Neon R/T’s around Laguna Seca at the driving School..

LP: Oh yes, absolutely. You know, I only raced that one-year amateur. Being racing again is great!!! It’s been awesome. It’s everything I ever wanted. There is no doubt. It’s very difficult at this level, obviously. I mean you have the best Sports Car drivers in the world here. And you are trying to do the best that you can against them. It’s tough. I’m enjoying that. We are getting there. We’ve had some very good moments. Things have been coming together very well.

MO: Do the Lizards have Team Orders?

LP: No. We don’t do that.

MO: But Darren Law and Johannes van Overbeek [in the #45 Flying Lizard car] are poised on the brink of a GT championship; you could hold up Timo [Bernhard of AJR] to help them win.

LP: No, we will not do that. The only Team Orders we have, that I will tell you about, is say, like when I out-qualified both of the guys? If for some reason I was having a problem? I would let them by. And the other one is don’t take each other out. And that is it! We would not ever deliberately try to slow someone up or take someone out. We are NOT going to do that. It’s just not the way FLM wants to race. I have had it happen to me from unnamed teams, in other series, but that is what I like about this series, everyone is so straight up. They don’t do stupid stuff like that.

RFM would like to thank Jennifer Hart and Lee Heublein of FLM for their kind assistance in obtaining this interview; and we wish continued success to our favorite reptiles in the ALMS as they press forward to victory this year!