[simple simon]

Flying Lizard Motorsports racer and one of the team's principal owners took a step up this year in the final tally for the Porsche Cup championship. Johannes van Overbeek is the proud recipient of this year's Porsche Cup, the tall lanky American was second last year to Wolf Henzler.

The top award for drivers racing Porsches does include the manufacturer's factory drivers who have rides with teams that are not factory owned but are considered privateer entrants. The award was presented to van Overbeek at the Porsche Motorsports Night in Weissach, Germany. He joins an elite group of racers who have earned the top Porsche driver award since the formation of the Porsche Cup in 1970, Price Cobb was the first of the USA drivers to win the special prize in 1994.

Van Overbeek is the fifth American to earn the honor -- he follows Cort Wagner (1999), Mike Fitzgerald (2000) and Kevin Buckler (2002) -- but he is the second racer from the Flying Lizard team. Van Overbeek and last year's winner Henzler were teammates in the American Le Mans Series LMGT2 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. In 2006, Henzler also ran in the Grand-Am Rolex Series with Tafel Racing, the same team he remained with in their move this year to the ALMS GT2 class. The German and the American raced together at the 24 Hours of Daytona in the Grand-Am Rolex Series season opener for the Tafel team.

Motorsport.com: News channel