Conway Takes IndyCar Long Beach Win

 IndyCar Long Beach

IndyCar Long Beach What a 40th Grand Prix of Long Beach!

In an unpredictable, somewhat chaotic IndyCar Long Beach race, Mike Conway of Ed Carpenter Racing won with a clean and steady approach while those around him were banging each other, scraping the barriers, or running out of gas.

Conway was running 15th when the leaders began cycling thru the pits with 27 laps to go.  Up to that point, pole sitter Ryan Hunter-Reay had dominated the race.  Hunter-Reay and Andretti Autosport teammate James Hinchcliffe pitted together while running one-two on lap 53.  Hunter-Reay exited the pits just ahead of Hinchcliffe while Josef Newgarden pitted behind them from third.  Newgarden had done a great in-lap and with a clean pit stop, got out just ahead of Hunter-Reay into Turn 1, but naturally on cold tires.  Hunter-Reay and Hinchcliffe on warming tires were stacked up behind Newgarden around the fountain.  At Turn 4, Ryan Hunter-Reay made an over optimistic attempt to pass Newgarden and punted him into the left barriers.  The ensuing melee took out Newgarden, Hunter-Reay, and Hinchcliffe who were running one, two, three as well as Tony Kanaan and Takuma Sato who ran into the pile up from behind.

On the restart, the running order was Scott Dixon, Justin Wilson, Will Power, & Mike Conway.  Shortly after the restart, Dixon nudged Wilson into the barriers on the approach to Turn 8.  The impact was pretty light, but it was enough to destroy Wilson’s left front suspension.  Wilson was furious because even though Dixon had to stop before the end, Wilson was good on fuel and was well positioned for a win.

In earlier action on Lap 32, Will Power helped Simon Pagenaud into the tire barrier at Turn 6 while Pagenaud was running in second place as the sequence below shows:

IndyCar Long Beach

IndyCar Long Beach

IndyCar Long Beach

Pagenaud was about as upset at Power as Wilson was at Dixon. For his part, Will Power apologized, surprised that he wasn’t penalized.

Ultimately, Carpenter took a well-deserved checkered for running a clean and consistent race.

IndyCar Long Beach

The top 15 at the finish:

Pos  Driver              Team/Engine           Time/Gap
 1.  Mike Conway         Carpenter/Chevy  1h54m41.6418s
 2.  Will Power          Penske/Chevy          +0.9005s
 3.  Carlos Munoz        Andretti/Honda        +1.5591s
 4.  Juan Pablo Montoya  Penske/Chevy          +2.0226s
 5.  Simon Pagenaud      Schmidt/Honda         +2.8169s
 6.  Mikhail Aleshin     Schmidt/Honda         +3.8574s
 7.  Oriol Servia        Rahal/Honda           +4.9621s
 8.  Marco Andretti      Andretti/Honda        +8.1948s
 9.  Sebastian Saavedra  KV/Chevy              +8.9029s
10.  Carlos Huertas      Coyne/Honda          +24.2295s
11.  Helio Castroneves   Penske/Chevy         +30.0552s
12.  Scott Dixon         Ganassi/Chevy        +30.7310s
13.  Graham Rahal        Rahal/Honda             +1 lap
14.  Sebastien Bourdais  KV/Chevy               +3 laps
15.  Jack Hawksworth     Herta/Honda            +3 laps

Many more pics at IndyCar Long Beach.

Ganassi & Corvette Dominate TUSC Long Beach

TUSC Long Beach

No. 1 Extreme Speed Motorsports Patron HPD ARX-03b

TUSC Long Beach AKA Tequila Patrón Sports Car Showcase At Long Beach

Wow, that’s a mouthful!  TUSC Long Beach was very different from any of the recent versions of ALMS races at Long Beach.  First of all, thanks to the inclusion of only two of the four TUSC classes, the field was much smaller than any race in recent memory.  In fact, it was the smallest sportscar field at Long Beach since 2009, the worst year there for ALMS thanks to the world financial crisis.  However, this year it was intentionally smaller – there is simply not enough paddock and pit space at Long Beach for the entire TUSC field.  On the positive side, the small field consisted of two classes rather than four, which should have meant for heightened competition…

… In The Race

So the other way this race was so different was the fact that it was run caution free.  That’s right, no Full Course Yellow!  At TUSC Long Beach!  Interestingly, at the green flag, Memo Rojas in the Ganassi No. 01 Telcel Ford EcoBoost/Riley and Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 Corvette C7.R – the respective class pole sitters – got off to an immediate lead and never looked back as the field gradually spread out.

TUSC Long Beach

No. 01 Telcel/Ford EcoBoost

Garcia just ran away with the race, and without a caution or trouble, there was nothing to close up the field. Joao Barbosa in the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP beat Scott Pruett out of the pits when the two cars pitted on the same lap. But Pruett had the No. 01 car back out in front within a couple of laps, and that’s where he finished. Further back in the field there were some interesting battles, especially for the Prototype podium spots, but since there not as many cars on the track and there was a smaller speed differential, there was simply less traffic to manage and fewer opportunities to pass. Although this is a timed race anyway, having it run without caution made it seem fast.

TUSC Long Beach

No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R

TUSC Long Beach Results

Prototype

  1. Pruett/Rojas (01), Ford EcoBoost/Riley
  2. Taylor/Taylor (10), Corvette DP
  3. Barbosa/Fittipaldi (5), Corvette DP

GT Le Mans

  1. Magnussen/Garcia (3), Chevrolet Corvette C7.R
  2. Muller/Edwards (56), BMW Z4 GTE
  3. Gavin/Milner (4), Chevrolet Corvette C7.R

TUSC Long Beach

Impressions

Even though there was only one pass on track for the lead in either class, the TUSC Long Beach edition was exciting, fun to watch, and seemed to be well attended.  The TUSC Paddock was open, friendly, and the drivers seemed to be more accessible and engaging, which the fans clearly loved.  I’d call this one a success.

Many more pics of TUSC Long Beach 2014

Pruett Takes Pole for Long Beach TUSC Race

The grid is set for the TUDOR United Sportscar Championship (TUSC) race that’s the Saturday feature event of the 40th Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend.  I know the IndyCar main event is Sunday, but Saturday is actually my favorite day – a relaxed atmosphere, open paddocks, IndyCar qualification, and the TUSC race to cap the day’s events.

Because of the pit constraints and a relatively small track at Long Beach, only the two main classes are running the this TUSC event: the Prototype and GT Le Mans (GTLM) classes.  Scott Pruett put the No. 01 Telcel/Chip Ganassi Racing Ford EcoBoost/Riley DP on pole with a time of 1:15.325.

Pruett

 

In the tightly contested GTLM field, Jan Magnussen took pole in his No. 3 Corvette C7.R with a time of 1:17.939, just ahead of Bill Auberlen in the No. 55 Crowne Plaza BMW Z4 GTE.

Magnussen

Auberlen

Should be a fantastic and competitive race today. See you at the Beach!

SoCal Speed!

Spring brings racing to Southern California, and several of the season’s best events happen over the next couple of weekends.

SoCal

First of all, this weekend we have the Porsche Club of America (PCA) 13th Annual California Festival of Speed at Auto Club Speedway.  The Festival of Speed is the largest Porsche event in the Southwest, and it really does have something for everyone: Cup Races, Time Trials, Autocross, Concours, Vendors, & a Swap Meet.  More info including schedule and map on the calendar here: California Festival of Speed.

Next weekend the TUDOR United Sportscar Championship (TUSC) and IndyCar come to SoCal for the 40th Grand Prix of Long Beach – a massive weekend celebration of SoCal speed.  Long Beach is really a can’t miss event for motorsports fans.  Check out what SoCal’s Bill Auberlen of BMW Team RLL has to say about the party that is Long Beach here on the TUSC site.  Information, tickets, schedule, map, fan guide and much more can be found here: Grand Prix of Long Beach.

So far, aside from some really horrible officiating calls that have directly effected the race results, the unification of ALMS and Grand-Am under the TUSC banner has worked out quite well.  In particular, the series seems to have gotten the balance of power between the former ALMS LMP2 cars and the former Grand-Am DP cars just about right.  No surprise, the racing the in the GT classes has been particularly exciting and competitive.

IndyCar welcomes fan favorite Juan Pablo Montoya back to open wheel racing with Team Penske with teammates Will Power and Helio Castroneves.  The competition between the Penske guys, Team Ganassi (Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Ryan Briscoe, & Charlie Kimball), and Andretti Autosport (Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, and Carlos Munoz) should be particularly close this year.  Sadly, we’ll be missing the 2009 Grand Prix of Long Beach winner, Dario Franchitti, who retired in the offseason due to injuries sustained in the Houston race last year.

Also next weekend, the Porsche Owners Cup will be running a Cup Race and Time Attack weekend at Willow Springs.