Between October 20 and November 2, US Gran Turismo fans were invited to put their driving skills to the test in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue as part of the Tanner Foust Online Competition. Competing for the fastest lap time on the London city track with the Nissan Fairlady Z car (known as the 350Z in the US), thousands of participants fought long and hard to attain one of the top spots and receive a prize.

At the end of the competition, one person came out on top with an amazing lap time of 1’00.711 seconds: Gregory Russell, a computer science major at college, as well as an aspiring pro race car driver. A Maryland native, Gregory has been a huge fan of Gran Turismo for over 7 years. When he’s not smoking the competition online in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, he enjoys listening to and playing music, solving Rubik’s Cubes, networking on Facebook and MySpace, and playing his PS3. He says his favorite cars from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue are the Ferrari F2007 Formula 1 car and the Tuned Suzuki Cappuccino.

As the grand prize winner, Gregory received not only a host of GT-related goods, including a copy of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue signed by top drift and rally racer Tanner Foust, he was also flown to Long Beach to attend the Formula DRIFT “Red Bull Drifting World Championships” and watch the action from the VIP section. While there, he also got to meet Tanner Foust, race against him in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue on the PlayStation Experience truck, and even got to ride shotgun with Tanner for 2 laps around the track in Tanner’s pro drift car, a Nissan 350Z.

Coming in second place was Brian Johnston from Georgia, a big fan of Gran Turismo, who clocked in at just over 1/10 of a second behind Gregory. Brian is a college freshman studying engineering, and has been playing Gran Turismo since Gran Turismo 2 on the original PlayStation. His favorite cars in the game are the Ford GT, Corvette Z06 Tuned, and the Nissan Fairlady (350Z).

And coming in at 3rd place was Kevin Bruner, a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma for 45 years. Kevin is also an active member of the Gran Turismo forums, and has been a racing fan since childhood. Kevin owns and has finished all of the Gran Turismo titles to 100% completion with all gold licenses.

Both Brian and Kevin will receive a copy of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue signed by Tanner Foust, a signed GT5P poster, and a Gran Turismo T-shirt and hat.

Honorable mentions in the event go to Brett Miller and Tim Bambu. Tim is from Florida and is actually an aspiring race car driver, attending and teaching at the International Motorsports Academy and competing in various kart series races in Florida. He also plans on majoring in Mechanical Engineering and will be involved in a special university program that builds a race car every year as part of a national competition.

You can catch them all racing online in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, but you’ll need some pretty good luck to actually catch up to them during the races, as they have proven themselves to be some of the fastest players in the US.