SALT LAKE CITY - Heading into the LeMans-inspired six-week break in the American LeMans Series schedule, the Rahal Letterman Racing squad headed to Saturday night’s Utah Grand Prix looking to build some needed momentum heading into the June sabbatical.

The RLR #18 BellMicro Porsche 911GT3 RSR visited the monolithic Miller Motorsports Park circuit for the first time ever on Saturday night, and matched a season-high with a sixth-place finish in the GT2 class.

Tom Milner started the race after qualifying the first-year entry to a season-best fourth-place starting spot on Friday, and quickly moved into third ahead of the Ferrari of series points leader Risi Competizione’s #62 entry.

“The first part of the race I was able to run with the leaders, which was encouraging for the whole team,” Milner said. “The car was very well balanced and I was able to run hard.”

Milner held third for four laps before Jamie Melo and Jorg Bergmeister fought their way by, dropping the #18 machine back to fifth at the first round of pit stops. Ralf Kelleners took the helm during the stop and thundered through the field, taking advantage of Melo’s problems on Lap 35 to move back into third place, ahead of the Bergmeister Porsche that was now in the hands of Johannes van Overbeek.

“The race went pretty well and the car was really good,” Kelleners said. “The pace was really there today for us, but things didn’t work out. Everybody was right there in sight at the end, it was pretty close between a few cars.”

Kelleners ended his stint in fourth place, having surrendered after a hard-fought battle with Rui Aguas - who would prove to be a thorn later as well. Milner climbed back in the saddle with 40 minutes to go and rejoined the fray on the 4.5-mile track in sixth, with Aguas less than five seconds ahead. Milner whittled the Ferrari’s lead to less than one second with 10 minutes left on the race clock, and was three-tenths of a second behind on the last lap, but settled for sixth.

“I really thought I had the pass (of Aguas) made at the end but he held his position using everything he had and that’s the way it goes,” Milner reported. “The finishing position of this car tonight doesn’t really show how fast the car was.”

The No. #31 Petersen/White Lightning entry driven by Tomas Enge and Darren Turner captured the GT2 class win followed by Flying Lizard Motorsport’s Johannes van Overbeek and Jorg Bergmeister a lap down. Penske Racing won the LMP2 and the overall competition with Ryan Briscoe and Sascha Maassen. Audi Sport North America won the LMP1 class with Rinaldo Capello and Allan McNish. Corvette Racing with Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin won the GT1 class.

Rahal Letterman Race Notes: Saturday’s visit to Miller Motorsports Park was the first for RLR’s ALMS program. . . The weekend featured season-high results in overall qualifying (16th) and overall results (16th). The sixth-place GT2 class finish matched a season-high set in the Sebring season opener...Milner’s fastest race lap of 96.91 mph was third-fastest among GT2 finishers...St Petersburg marked the first time that both the RLR IndyCar Series program and the RLR ALMS Porsche GT2 program ran on the same weekend. The two will run together at Mid-Ohio and Detroit’s Belle Isle.