| Sleek, Exotic Sports Cars and Southern Cal Culture Make for Perfect Mash-Up April 7, 2022By David PhillipsIMSA Wire Service  DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach returns to its traditional place on the motorsports calendar this weekend for the first time since 2019. While much has changed since the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship last took to the streets of Long Beach in April of that year, much remains the same: the unique fusion of exotic race cars and Southern California’s car culture, celebrities aplenty, chamber of commerce weather and a demanding street circuit that punishes the smallest mistake. With a 27-car field, there figure to be plenty of opportunities for mistakes; solo encounters with unyielding walls to be sure, but also the fender-to-fender, paint-trading, chrome-horn style action that inevitably results when three classes – Daytona Prototype International (DPi), GTD PRO and GT Daytona (GTD) – battle on an 11-turn, 1.968-mile street circuit over 100 minutes. If last September’s race is any gauge, there figures to be a seven-second difference per lap between the pace-setting prototypes and the GT cars. In other words, the half-dozen DPi competitors will need to find ways around their 21 GT counterparts about 10 or more times during the race. Sounds like a recipe for the occasional outbreak of mayhem to me. Which leads to another feature of the event, namely that race strategy will likely play a crucial role in the finishing order. That strategy requires counting backwards; specifically, gauging at what point in the race a team can make what figures to be its lone scheduled pit stop and have enough fuel and tire life to reach the finish. Ah, if it were only that simple. There’s always the chance (indeed, likelihood at a street circuit like Long Beach) of a wild card or two in the form of full-course yellows. Should a caution occur a few laps before your ideal pit stop window, do you make your stop while the field is trundling around at reduced speed and then hope there are either additional yellows (during which fuel mileage substantially improves) or that your driver can coax a couple extra laps from the car by conserving fuel? Or do you stick to your original strategy and hope the rest of the race runs yellow-free or that your driver can run down the cars that stopped early and went into fuel-conservation mode? Teams will also need to adapt to changing track conditions in practice, qualifying and the race itself. For while there is ample practice and qualifying time on the schedule, track conditions are sure to evolve dramatically. As with any street race, the track will start green, dusty and slippery and gain grip by leaps and bounds as the surface “rubbers in” over the course of the weekend. Thus, the grip level in Friday’s morning practice session may vary significantly from the practice later that afternoon, let alone a qualifying session slated to begin at 5:15 p.m. local time. So much for the theoretical, what about the practical? What can we learn from the past? Cadillac must be a heavy favorite for the overall honors, given that it has won at Long Beach every year since 2017. Action Express’ No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R will be gunning for a grand slam at The Beach, having won in 2018, ’19 and ’21. Having taken the win in ’17 for Cadillac, Wayne Taylor Racing would like nothing better than to break the Caddy stranglehold now that WTR runs an Acura in the marque’s namesake event. In contrast to DPi, there’s little history to rely on when it comes to GTD, even less so for the new GTD PRO class. Last year saw the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 capture GTD honors ahead of the Porsche 911 GT3 Rs of Pfaff and Wright Motorsports, but it was the first time the class had raced at Long Beach since 2017. And this year, the Miller team is running a BMW M4 GT3 and Pfaff has moved to the GTD PRO class. Speaking of GTD PRO, Corvette Racing is far and away the most successful single IMSA team in Long Beach history, with eight wins in various GT categories. The No. 3 Corvette C8.R GTD scored an impressive GTD PRO win at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts last month. However, there are five other teams – each representing a different manufacturer – looking to become the first GTD PRO winner at this iconic race, including the No. 9 Pfaff Porsche that won the Rolex 24 At Daytona to start the season. But, as any observer worth their salt can attest, trying to pick a winner in either GT class is risky business at best, given the depth and ferocity of competition between the world’s leading sports car marques. Be sure to catch all the action from Long Beach if you cannot attend in person. Qualifying streams live on IMSA.com/TVLive at 8:10 p.m. ET Friday. The race airs live at 5 p.m. Saturday on USA Network and Peacock. And as usual, IMSA Radio has blanket coverage. |
