Snow: Track Position Key to Long Beach Three-Peat Chances

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Madison Snow believes track position will be key for he and Bryan Sellers to pull off a third consecutive GTD class victory at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach this weekend.

The Paul Miller Racing duo head into the third round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season on the heels of top class honors in last month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, alongside the team’s Michelin Endurance Cup pilot Corey Lewis.

Having won on the streets of Long Beach in 2021 with a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo prior to the team’s switch to BMW M4 GT3 machinery the following year, Snow feels they’re in a better position some one year after debuting the German manufacturer’s new GT3 offering.

“We definitely have had a lot more time in the car,” Snow said. “Last year, Sebring, was the first race we had with the car. We we on to Long Beach and ended up winning, so that was a very good opening for us with the car.

“Now we have a year under our belt, so we’re going to go back there with a lot more experience, try a couple of things that we’ve learned throughout our time [with the car].

“It’s going to be a tough race for sure.

“We’ve been a little slow, pace-wise, recently. At Sebring we weren’t fast but what the nature of IMSA and multi-class racing and what makes it good is that we were able to pull off a good strategy at the end of the race and come home with the win.

“That’s a lot harder for a race at Long Beach, a short race. Qualifying definitely means the most at Long Beach. I think the last two years have shown me that, so that’s going to be where all of the pressure is.”

Snow, who claimed poles in both the 2021 and 2022 editions, and co-driver Sellers currently trail Inception Racing’s Brendan Iribe and Frederik Schandorff by a single point heading into Saturday’s 100-minute race.

While having unable to fight for the season-long championship last year due to missing the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Snow said it’s still too early to be thinking of their GTD title prospects.

Snow and Sellers won the WeatherTech Sprint Cup title last year.

“I think for me we just try to do the best we can every week and see where we end up,” he said.

“It’s fun being out there and going for the championship but if you sit there and watch points every single weekend and chase points, you won’t make aggressive decisions, or you could be too conservative.

“You have to race your race, not worry about what everybody else is doing all the time and do the best that you can.

“With that being said, you also have to know who you’re racing against to know that one position here means something but one position against somebody else doesn’t mean nearly as much.”

Snow, a Silver-rated driver by the FIA, said he was proud to have been entrusted by completing the closing stint in the team’s BMW at Sebring, which came down to a fuel mileage contest.

“That was great,” he told Sportscar365. “I think it was my second win finishing. Sebring was definitely the biggest one I’ve ever done. I’m glad the team had the faith in me to put me in the car for that.

“The last hour and 40 [minutes] of the race, the team didn’t tell me a whole lot, but they didn’t know a whole lot because the strategy kept changing. ‘Can we make it? Can we not?’ Yellows come out, this and that.

“They told me what I needed to do and it ended up working out.”

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