(April 17, 2010) — Bryce Miller will start the American Le Mans Series race in Long Beach, Calif., from seventh on the GTC class grid. Miller, of Summit, N.J., qualified the No. 48 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car in one minute 24.730 seconds at an average speed of 83.616 mph on the 1.968-mile road course.

Saturday’s ALMS race will be the first for the new Orbit-prepared entry that was announced late last week. John McMullen of Spring Lake, N.J., will drive the first stint of the 100-minute race, followed by Miller. The pair had limited time to learn the challenging Long Beach circuit before qualifying on Friday, as the two-hour morning practice session was stopped six times for a total of 43 minutes.

“I think we’re still trying to shake down the car and find all the little quirks with it because it’s our first roll-out in GTC,” Miller said. “I had hoped that I would have had more laps by this point to know the track better and also to progress the setup of the car faster. I think we’re just a couple of steps behind our competitors with the progression of the setup. But we’re here and we’re racing and we’re going to score points. That’s good for a late entry. John will be able to race his counterparts [at the beginning of the race] and hopefully we can throw enough setup changes at the car to give ourselves a chance at the end. But we’ll make something happen – we’ll shake it up.”

www.orbitracing.com, www.brycemiller.net –