Long Beach Thursday Notebook

Photo: John Dagys

***A total of 26 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship cars unloaded Thursday ahead of the start of on-track activity tomorrow for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. A 27th entry — the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 for Brendan Iribe and Frederik Schandorff — is present after not being on the original entry list.

***NTE Sport’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, however, is a no-show after its transporter had a tire blowout in Texas while en route to California. Sportscar365 understands significant damage was sustained to the transporter and parts didn’t arrive in time for it resume the cross-country journey.

***Inception’s McLaren, meanwhile, is set up outside the IMSA paddock due to it late entry. Schandorff takes the place of Ollie Millroy for the WeatherTech Sprint Cup races, although the Englishman is on-site this weekend in a coaching capacity for Iribe, who makes his street circuit debut.

***Long Beach marks the opening Sprint Cup round of the season and the first of two races that only pays Sprint Cup points in the GTD class. The other will be Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in July.

***The No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 is the only season-long Sprint Cup-only entrant this year, with Gradient Racing currently only confirmed for this weekend in addition to its Michelin Endurance Cup program.

***RWR’s Ryan Eversley said running in top-level IMSA competition for a season-long campaign has been something he’s “wanted to do for a long time.” Eversley added: “When I was racing in SRO series, I think that was at its high point with GT cars, so I’m not intimated by the people I’m competing against or anything like that because it’s all the same guys from that series.”

***The Eurasia-operated team completed two single-day tests at Carolina Motorsports Park prior to this weekend’s race debut. Eversley hinted that a full-season program is the goal for next year and potentially continuing into 2024 “if there’s another avenue that we can take together.”

***RWR is affiliated with Ford in NASCAR, with the Blue Oval set to debut its Multimatic-led Mustang GT3 program in 2024 that will also be made available to customers in the first year.

***Bryan Sellers said tackling the Hairpin in the BMW M4 GT3 will be an “interesting” prospect, owing to size of the new-for-2022 contender. The M4 is 633 mm longer (5020 vs. 4387 mm) and 28 mm wider (2040 vs. 2012 mm) than its predecessor. 

***BMW M Motorsport boss Andreas Roos told Sportscar365 that Team RLL’s No. 24 BMW-owned chassis will head back to Europe for a different program. “It will definitely run, but not in the U.S. anymore,” he said.

***As previously reported by Sportscar365, John Edwards and Connor De Phillippi will pilot the solo factory GTD Pro class BMW for the remainder of the season and are set to be rejoined by Augusto Farfus at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen and season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans.

***This weekend marks the first time RLL has run a single BMW since the 2009 Asian Le Mans Series in Okayama, when Tommy Milner and Dirk Mueller teamed up in a BMW M3 GT2, winning one of the two races on the weekend.

***Corvette Racing, which is also running as a single-car operation in GTD Pro, has seven previous class wins at Long Beach.

***BMW is providing both Turner Motorsport and Paul Miller Racing with an “open book” in terms of setups according to Turner’s Jay O’Connell, who is taking an increased effort as race engineer across both the team’s WeatherTech Championship and Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS programs this year.

****Danielle Shepherd, race engineer for the No. 02 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R, earned her first victory in her second IMSA race at Sebring. Shepherd was the simulation engineer on Alex Palou’s NTT IndyCar Series championship-winning team in 2021, and won the 2018 IndyCar championship with Scott Dixon.

***Sebring winner Alex Lynn, who is making his Long Beach debut, recently turned laps of the freshly paved and reconfigured Spa-Francorchamps circuit in advance of next month’s FIA World Endurance Championship race where the Englishman will be part of United Autosports’ lineup in LMP2.

***Lynn said: “The whole circuit is very grippy now! Lots of new asphalt but very high grip. Eau Rouge was the same as before but with quite a bit more run off now which is great for safety.”

***In addition to CGR, Meyer Shank Racing and Team RLL also have entries in both the WeatherTech Championship and IndyCar Series this weekend, in addition to the Rick Ware Racing-backed, Dale Coyne Racing-run effort in IndyCar. Long Beach marks the reunion of all four of the Rolex 24-winning drivers in MSR’s Acura ARX-05, with Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves the team’s two full-season IndyCar drivers.

***Wright Motorsports’ Ryan Hardwick is also making his Long Beach debut although he has raced jet skis and AMA SuperMoto in the city before. Hardwick’s co-driver Jan Heylen, meanwhile, made his first start in the U.S. in the 2006 Champ Car series race at Long Beach.

***Fellow Porsche customer teams Pfaff Motorsports and Hardpoint will both utilize Porsche Motorsport North America’s facility in nearby Carson, Calif. to do race prep ahead of the fourth round of the season at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca later this month.

***PMNA is headquartered at the second of two Porsche Experience Centers in the U.S., the other one located at Porsche Cars North America’s headquarters in Atlanta.

***A total of 38 Porsche-built race cars are set to compete between the WeatherTech Championship round and the debut of Porsche Carrera Cup North America presented by The Cayman Islands at Long Beach. 

***The pair of 40-minute races for the single-make series are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

***Bill Auberlen was inducted into the Long Beach Grand Prix Walk of Fame on Thursday morning. The veteran driver made his 500th start in a BMW last month at Sebring. “It’s almost surreal,” Auberlen told IMSA Newswire. “Long Beach has always been my home circuit, so it’s kind of a ‘local kid makes good’ thing, and I’m truly honored.”

***Chip Ganassi, meanwhile, was honored at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles on Wednesday, in an event hosted by Ray Evernham. The RRDC will have its annual dinner this evening, honoring Rick Mears, meanwhile.

Daniel Lloyd contributed to this report

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John