The weekend saw the Sports Car Showcase at Long Beach, California in the latest Le Mans circuit in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship. The race was storied, but not entirely unexpected.
The Corvette Racing team’s co-drivers Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen dominated the field on the Long Beach street circuit, leading nearly every lap in the No. 3 Corvette C7.R. Their No. 4 car came in third with Team RLL’s BMW Z4 GTE No. 56 coming in between.
This was the first time the Corvette team has made the podium this season, after reliability issues took the cars out of the running in the previous two TUDOR races.
In the Pirelli World Challenge, Porsche once again covered the race with entries, the big story being EFFORT Racing’s Michael Mills of Arlington, Texas taking the GT Amateur class win in the 60-minute Roar by the Shore race. The amateur class allows those who don’t race full-time to contend on the circuit. The overall win in the race was taken by Cadillac in the CTS-V R No. 3 driven by Johnny O’Connell and Andy Pilgrim.
Finally, the Long Beach races also saw the latest Stadium Super Trucks race with Robby Gordon in his SPEED Energy truck once again taking the win, this time after rivals Citgo’s E.J. Viso and TRAXXAS’ Sheldon Creed slammed one another, creating the opening in the last lap for Gordon to blast through for the win. Visio, an IndyCar veteran, had otherwise held the lead for most of the laps in the race, setting a new record for the most laps held in an SST race. Creed ultimately finished third.
This marks two youngsters in SST who are doing well for themselves. Creed is only sixteen while fifth place winer Gavin Harlien is only fourteen. Amazing that kids that young are competing (and placing) in such a hard-scrabble motorsport.
