The second day of the 49th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach continued to blaze up the tracks at Long Beach this Saturday with multiple races including the IMSA SportsCar Grand Prix, Stadium Super Trucks (SST) race one, GT America race and the Formula D Super Drift Challenge Competition two.
The first race that kicked off the Grand Prix after the practice rounds for the Indy cars was the Historic Indy Car Challenge(HICC).
The victor for the HICC was Tim DeSilva, the driver of number 120, with an overwhelming lead staying in 1st place for the whole race.
“It’s more just about the fun experience getting to drive a car like this in Long Beach especially a car that raced here in 1995 and did well so it’s fun to get to experience that 30 years later,” DeSilva said.
The 1995 Lola T9500, DeSilva’s vehicle for the HICC, was bought by his father in 2016 and it finished second in Long Beach back in 1995.
“If you look at the Indy car teams there’s like forty people..my dad owns the car I drive it and then we have a team who works on it for us it’s about three or four people,” DeSilva said.
When asked what his favorite part about racing was, DeSilva stated the experience with his father and how they’ve been working on the car for so long together was why he liked the races.
After the HICC the Indy Qualifiers took place, the qualifiers were two segments, the first segment consisted of two groups of 27 racers each competing for the top six spots, those twelve racers then moved on to the second segment which included the Firestone Fast Six section of the event.
The fastest out of the Firestone Fast Six was none other than Felix Rosenqvist with his fastest time being 01:06.0172.
The rest of the Fast six were Will Power with a time of 01:06.0211 in second place
Josef Newgarden with a time of 01:06.1059 in third, Colton Herta with a time of 01:06.3784 at number four, Marcus Ericsson with a time of 01:06.4039 at number five, and finally Alex Palou with a time of 01:06.5444 at number six.
The next event, IMSA SportsCar Grand Prix of Long Beach, was a race in which both the GT Prototype(GTP) and GT Daytona(GTD) classes mixed and competed for first place.
GTP race cars are the newest and most technologically advanced prototypes that feature a common hybrid powertrain for all entries;Acura,BMW, Cadillac and Porsche are the automotive manufactures for GTPs.
GTD cars are enhanced technology and use the global FIA GT3 specification; Acura, Aston Martin, BMW Ferrari, Lamborghini, Lexus, McLaren, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche are leading manufacturers for GTD.
Each class had their own prospective winners, the GTP winners were Sebastian Bourdais and Renger van der Zande, driving number one, and the GTD division’s winners were Parker Thompson and Ben Barnicoat, drivers of number 89.
Bourdais placed first overall and his fastest time was 1:12.626 with a total of 68 laps.
Thompsone started at pole and had a good start however in the first twenty to thirty minutes he was surpassed yet he was able to reach the leaderboard settling into 2nd place with 45 min left on the clock.
In second place for the GTP section was Pipo Derani, driving number 31, who got a total time of 1:40:07.882 having a gap of 0.564.
After the IMSA race the Stadium Street Trucks race took place around 4 p.m.
The SST race resulted in 15 year old Max Gordon, the driver for truck number 77, winning first place and leaving Robby Gordon, Max’s Father and driver of number seven, as the runner up.
When asked how it felt to beat his father in the race Max said “I thought it was something super cool to do at first but now it’s coming natural.”
Earlier in the conference Robby joked that he taught Max too much but from the SST results and Max’s statements Robby has been a great model for Max throughout his progress.
Robby also remarked that not only did Max drive the car he also did all the preparation and work for the car.
“The three of the orangutans (referring to Max and two companions) put this thing together and knock on wood we have not had a drip of oil they run flawlessly every session,” Robby said at the media conference.
The first race for GT America started off with Johnny O’Connell, driver of number 3, at pole followed by James Sofronas, driver of number 14 and Jaosn Daskalos, driver of number 27.
The race ended with Daskalos in first place, O’Connell in second and Sofronas in third.
The second night of the Grand Prix ended with the second Super Drift challenge with Robert Thorne and Connor O’Sullivan advancing to the finals where Thorne came in first, O’Sullivan in second and Forrest Wang in third.
Excitement is evident for the final day of the Grand Prix and the main event, the Indycar Grand Prix of Long Beach.