Long Beach Carrera Cup Notebook

Photo: Jonathan Grace

***This weekend’s Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America event at Long Beach features a capacity 35-car grid due to paddock and track space limitations. Sportscar365 understands that a waitlist was initially established, owing to the demand for Rounds 3 and 4 of the season.

***The Carrera Cup grid is larger than both the 28-car IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship field and 27 cars for Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach NTT IndyCar Series race.

***The next event in Miami, supporting the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, as well as the rounds at Porsche Rennsport Reunion VII in September will also be entry restricted.

***Carrera Cup competitors, as well as their colleagues from the WeatherTech Championship kicked off the event on Thursday evening during a welcome reception at Porsche South Bay in Hawthorne, Calif. Head of Porsche Motorsport Thomas Laudenbach were among those present.

***As was the case during last year’s inaugural running on the streets of Southern California streets, the Carrera Cup paddock is set up inside the Long Beach convention center, allowing fans an up-close look at the cars and interaction with teams and drivers.

***This is the hometown race for the singe-make series with Porsche Motorsport North America based at the Porsche Experience Center Los Angeles in nearby Carson, Calif.

***Riley Dickinson entered the weekend with a perfect score of 56 points following his sweep of the opening event at Sebring International Raceway last month. The Kellymoss driver scored wins in both races as well as the pole position and fastest race lap in the two races.

***Dickinson held a 16-point lead over McElrea Racing’s Tom Sargent, with JDX Racing driver Will Martin nine further points behind in third, prior to Friday’s qualifying for Round 3.

***That lead was expanded courtesy of Dickinson’s pole on Friday.

***Two cars: the No. 20 MDK Motorsports Porsche of Jason Hart and No. 13 Wright Motorsports entry of Varun Choksey, have been moved to the rear of the Pro class grid for Race 1 due to technical infractions found in post-qualifying inspection. Per section 1.3 of the technical regulations: “mounting a part in a different way or location than the original delivery condition is forbidden.”

***Click Here for the revised grid for Race 1.

***Of the 2022 Long Beach winners, Alan Metni, who won the Pro-Am class for Race 1 last year, John Goetz (Am class, Race 1) and Mark Kvamme (Am class, Race 2) are the only returning class winners. Kay van Berlo, who won both rounds overall last year, has moved up to WeatherTech Championship competition, co-driving the No. 91 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R with Metni.

***In addition to Metni, PJ Hyett was due to pull double duty between Carrera Cup and WeatherTech Championship competition this weekend until his AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R was withdrawn due to an accident in qualifying.

***Three drivers call California their home: Thomas Merrill (Salinas), Kyle Washington (Indio) and Chris Bellomo (Portola Valley). GMG Racing, meanwhile, is based in Santa Ana, Calif.

***PMNA is hosting three karters this weekend as the first selected to the Talent Identification Program North America. Gavin Bayliff (18), Jeremy Fletcher (16) and Hannah Greenemeier (20) will spend the weekend with an inside look at professional sports car racing and with PMNA competition advisor and driving coach Patrick Long.

***The third season of Carrera Cup North America continues to see the use of ABS outfitted on the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars, which has been an ongoing topic of discussion. Regional Carrera Cups have the option to run without ABS, with Carrera Cups in Germany and Australia among the notable series to do so.

***Porsche Motorsport North America single-make and GT sports manager Troy Bundy, who arrived in the U.S. last year after heading up Porsche Cars Australia’s motorsport division, said they initially had ABS on Pro-Am entries in Carrera Cup Australia until those cars were passing the non-ABS Pros.

***Bundy told Sportscar365: “[ABS] is a debate in every market. We look it but from my perspective, for this market, it’s the right decision for us. I’m a foreigner, an Australian coming here, and while I’ve got some key learnings from Australia, I think it’s also very important to understand your market. For me it doesn’t make a lot of sense to change at this stage because every other series runs with ABS.”

***Race 1 gets underway at 5:15 p.m. PT (8:15 p.m. ET), with the second 40-minute round of the weekend scheduled for Sunday at 4:20 p.m. PT (7:20 p.m. ET) following the IndyCar race. Live coverage will be available on Peacock, IMSA.tv and PorscheCarreraCup.us featuring commentary from IMSA Radio’s John Hindhaugh and Jeremy Shaw.

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