On the other side of the Atlantic, teams are busy preparing for their trip across the pond for the 2010 Le Mans 24 Hours. The American Le Mans Series cars that are contesting this year’s race are expected to leave for France at the end of the week.

Highcroft Racing, Drayson Racing, Flying Lizard Motorsports, Risi Competizione, Corvette Racing and Jaguar RSR only had a few days to recover their cars from Monterey, California, refettle them in their respective workshops and put them on a plane for France.

The teams’ semi-trailers lost no time leaving the paddock at Laguna Seca after the third round of ALMS, en route for Danbury, on the USA’s eastern seaboard (Connecticut) in the case of Highcroft Racing, Houston (Texas) for Risi Competizione and Detroit (Michigan) for Corvette Racing.

Flying Lizard Motorsports was more fortunate in that its base is in Sonoma, a mere three hours’ drive from Monterey. “Le Mans logistics are always a huge challenge,” notes Flying Lizard’s Jennifer Hart. “We pulled out of Laguna Seca at two in the morning on Sunday, which left us with just three days to get everything ready. We’ve got torrential rain here in California, which doesn’t help! The Porsche GT3 RSR left San Francisco on a Virgin Airways flight on Tuesday May 24.“

“The HPD ARX 01c was trucked back from California,” says Highcroft Racing spokesperson Paul Ryan. “It has since been entirely rebuilt and its bodywork has been changed to switch it to a Le Mans aerodynamic set-up. The car and all the team’s equipment is due to take off from New York’s JFK Airport today (Friday May 28).”

At Drayson Racing, preparing for Le Mans was all but completed on Sunday May 23 at Monterey. Drayson Racing’s communications manager, Tom Moore: “Our Lola-Judd flew out of San Francisco for the United Kingdom the very next day, arriving in the UK on Wednesday. It is in the process of being rebuilt at Lola’s premises in Huntington. The plan is to arrive at Le Mans on June 4.“

The schedule promises to be a little tighter for Risi Competizione which has two Ferraris to get shipshape in time for Le Mans where the Texas-based squad is targeting an LMGT2 hat-trick after consecutive class wins in 2008 and 2009.

24 Hours of Le Mans