Two of the world’s most famous automotive names will lead a very diverse field of high-powered sports cars into the American Le Mans Series race in Long Beach this Saturday, as teams racing Porsches and Corvettes aim for a podium finish.

The 100-minute race is a departure from the marathon endurance races that teams in ALMS usually run, coming off last weekend’s six-hour race at the famed Sebring track.

The ALMS is basically an autosports lover’s dream come true; a jumble of the world’s most sophisticated sports cars thrown onto the track at the same time. Making the series more interesting is the fact that stripped-down prototype cars race alongside the stylish cars you may see on the street such as Porsche 911s, Jaguar XKRs and Ferrari F430s. A record 35 cars have entered Saturday’s field, and you can expect to see some of racing’s marquee names leading the way.

The Cytosports Racing team will field a Porsche RS Spyder in the prototype P2 class, and coming off of a class win in Sebring last week, the team is eager to find new success in Long Beach and perhaps even challenge higher-powered P1 cars like the Peugeot 908 HDI for an overall victory.

“To me it’s certainly the best sports car I’ve ever driven, that’s for sure,” says Cytosports driver Klaus Graf of the Porsche RS Spyder that he will co-drive this Saturday on one of his favorite tracks.

“The atmosphere being right on the water and the front straightaway goes alongside the coastline, that’s special to me,” Graf says. “This is the Monte Carlo of the United States.”

Porsche RS Spyders ran the ALMS race in Long Beach in 2007 and 2008, earning a stunning overall win the first time and scoring the top two qualifying positions in the second go-round. But no team has fielded an RS Spyder at Long Beach since then, so Grad and Cytosport have a unique opportunity to capture victory with a proven winner on this track. Manager Geoff Carter said his team will certainly push for the checkered flag.

“The mindset for the team is we’re going to be much more aggressive than we were for Sebring,” says Carter, who said that drivers can afford to relax slightly during a six-hour race but will not have that luxury in Saturday’s sprint.

“Every single position on the track, you have to argue with everybody [for position] every time,” Carter says. “It’s a classic sprint race and it’s so different to what these cars are made to do, but it’s such a great event and we’re so happy to be a part of it.”

Amid the thirty-something other cars on the track during Saturday’s ALMS race, keep an eye out for the screaming V8 of the Cytosport Porsche RS Spyder as it searches for victory after a two-year hiatus in Long Beach.

If the race and its several different classes gets confusing, here’s a tip: take a look at the side of the car, where three lights will be lined up vertically. If the top bulb is lit, that car is leading its class. If the top two lights are on, the car is in second place in its class and so on.

One car you won’t need a lighting system to recognize will be the two Corvette C6.R cars of Corvette Racing. After several years of dominating the ALMS GT1 class – to the point that other teams refused to enter the class and the ‘Vettes raced against themselves – Corvette Racing decided to restrict the car’s capabilities and enter it into the heavily diverse GT2 field against the aforementioned Porsche 911, Ferrari F430 and BMW M3 GTR.

The Flying Lizard team Porsche and Risi Competizione team Ferrari have each had great success in Long Beach in the GT2 class, while the Rahal Letterman team BMW cars have made great strides since debuting last year and they even scored a 1-2 class win last week in Sebring.

That doesn’t leave much room for the Corvettes, who shot themselves in the foot last week when the cars crashed into each other in the pits as their crews looked on in horror. That embarrassing crash left the door open for the BMW cars and ruined Corvette Racing’s long anticipated entry into the GT2 class. In Long Beach, the ‘Vette C6.R is out for revenge.

“I think everybody on the team is going to be very motivated after what turned out to be a very disappointing Sebring race for us,” said Johnny O’Connell, driver of the #3 Corvette C6.R. A very familiar face here, O’Connell first raced in Long Beach in 1986 and knows the course extremely well.

“On a street course like Long Beach, a driver has to be smart but also a little aggressive to get a good result,” O’Connell said in a Corvette Racing press release. “The short stints are going to put the emphasis on sharp pit stop strategy and quick driver changes. You can’t afford to lose time behind a slower car, but you also have to remember that any mistake on a street circuit is usually highly detrimental to success.”

The menacing yellow/black Corvettes may look the same as the ones driven to domination in years past, but take a close look. This year’s GT2 C6.R gets a slight reduction in horsepower, from 590 to 485, losing last year’s massive 7.0-liter engine for a still-fearsome 5.5-liter V8 called the LS5.5R.

The car needed to undergo such transformations to make the switch to the more competitive GT2 class and O’Connell and company will look to prove that their car can be successful at any level.

Neither the Cytosport Porsche RS Spyder nor the Corvette Racing C6.R will have it easy come Saturday, but two of the most fan-friendly names in motorsports will be front and center to provide a direct-injection of racing spirit to the always thrilling American Le Mans Series race at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.