We just finished an eventful Long Beach weekend! I have to tell you if you have never been to the Long Beach Grand Prix, it is an amazing setup with almost 200k people in attendance. I recommend the Hyatt Regency which is the iconic building located just inside the street course and is a short walk to most everything. The Grand Prix was action packed consisting of Indy Car, IMSA, GTP and GTD, and Carrera Cup, as well as a few other series.
| Race 1 | 10th Place |
| Race 2 | OUT (Radiator Damage) |
Dan and his teammate, Thomas Merrill, had a slightly slower start to the weekend with Dan qualifying 14th. However, Dan did an amazing job in Race 1, finishing 10th and garnering the 5th fastest lap! Others weren’t so fortunate, as Michael McCarthy spun out and was hit (head on by) Jason Hart. McCarthy’s car was subsequently totaled and Hart’s car had major front end damage. Fortunately, neither drivers were hurt - but both were able to compete in Race 2! We all can be thankfully reminded how safe these Cup cars are!!
Race 2 was not so good to us. On the opening lap at the fountain, Dan’s front right number corner was hit by the left rear of the car in front of Dan. Consequently, our radiator was damaged and Dan was immediately forced to retire. The most exciting part of the race was watching Australia’s Tom Sargent and Britain’s Will Martin battle runaway points leader Riley Dickinson. Eventually, Dickinson succumbed to the pressure and finished 3rd. The podium fight for the Carrera Cup Championship just became much more thrilling!
All in all, we are excited for Miami in less than 3 weeks! Dan is tied for 6th in the points which is still remarkable!! Keep in mind, many of these drivers are have spent substantially more time in the 992 Cup cars. Dan and his teammate have spent minimal time in these Cup cars (relatively speaking) are learning these cars more at each race. Lets go - Miami!!
Upcoming Race: Miami Grand Prix (5/5-5/7)
- Saturday, May 6 - 2:05pm (Race #1)
- Sunday, May 7 - 12:25pm (Race #2)
View Full Schedule Here
Go Speedy Dan!
BJ
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Dan’s Commentary:
Mega to be returning to Long Beach after 13 years and the huge vibe that is 3 major race series all crammed into a small paddock area.
Qualifying was our struggle. The majority of the Pro field (18-20 cars) all qualified within roughly 1second of each other. So 0.1s can make the difference of 2-3 positions. Our team hasn't yet found a competitive Qual setup (low fuel and only 5-6 laps per new set of tyres compared with 60 liters of fuel and running tyres for 40mins in a race) so even a few tenths of a second we're not utilising there is the difference of up to 10 positions. We qualified 16th. Some cars failed post-Qual tech and had issues before the race so we started 13th.
We have some ideas for the next event that I think could work, even a strategy for breaking in new tyres that may even garner 0.1-0.2s per lap worth of grip that some of these experienced drivers may be doing. The biggest challenge with being new to a "spec" series is going to be tiny nuances like this that teams in their 3rd season have learned before. It's frustrating but once that has been figured out races will become a lot easier with less cars in front to pass.
Race 1 went pretty well for the constraints of being on a tight street course. The first goal is making it through the first lap as is evident in this series there is a lot of bumping around when everyone is together. This went well and I was able to pick off a few positions before the final full course yellow that ran to the checkered flag. P10 result.
Race 2 was the opposite luck for the start. A small bump going into the Fountain turn on lap 1 resulted in a cracked radiator on our car. Even the front bumper appears undamaged but for some tyre marks. This is a known fragility in these cars and unfortunately couldn't be avoided. The small amount of water that was leaking from the front right radiator was getting on the front right tyre. So within a couple turns of the impact braking became a huge issue. Then trying to turn left was impossible. Luckily I didn't hit any walls as I slipped down. Water Pressure alarms then confirmed what was wrong. I was able to pit and retire before any water temperature rise.
A frustrating weekend to be starting street course races in unideal positions due to some inexperience with extracting the best from these cars. Fortunately, other cars in the top 6 in points had worse weekends than we did so we haven't slipped down the order much but the field immediately behind has tightened.
Looking forward to Miami next and hopefully we have something better for Qualifying and be in a better situation in the races to consolidate and maybe steal a few places to score some solid points again.
Dan