ALMS Long Beach 4-21-2013 Claustrophobia

Nothing like watching a bunch of expensive sports cars drive fast in confined spaces, often into the walls and into each other. I think there was at least a half-hour of caution in this hour and a half race. Street races are often like this, but I think only Monaco is a tighter fit for the cars than Long Beach. Of course Monaco has no where near the same amount of traffic that an American Le Mans race has.

The comparisons between these two tracks don’t stop there. They are the glamour venues in their respective series. Both feature a marina; Monaco with the expensive yachts, Long Beach has a large sailing ship and the Queen Mary in the background. Monaco has the casino turn, a theater, a bank, and a Gucci’s shop along the race route. Long Beach has a hotel with a lagoon inside the track. Monaco has the very slow and scenic Loews hairpin. Long Beach has the pretty fountain chicane and a tight hairpin at turn one. While there’s no fear-inducing Tunnel on the track, Long Beach feels very enclosed pretty much all the way around.

And then the comparisons fall apart. Monaco has royalty. Long Beach has a celebrity Pro-Am race during the weekend. That’s likely the main reason for the continued survival of this race, where most street races go away after a couple of years. So, thank you celebrities and your ego-stroking racing fantasies for keeping this race venue alive. Wealth and the crowds are conspicuous at Monaco. Long Beach has the more traditional street race feel, a bunch of cars driving down empty streets. There are spectators and a few grandstands. They just don’t show up on the most of the camera views, so there’s this oppressive sense of a racing spectacle with no one watching. Event organizers should watch the TV view of their race sometime.

It’s still the last season of ALMS before the merger next year, though you’d never know it from watching the coverage. That’s okay. I’m not looking forward to seeing those butt-ugly Daytona Prototypes slowly chugging around the track and would like to forget it’s going to happen. In the meantime, I was disappointed to not see the Delta Wing car out on track, but was impressed by the Viper team.

For the race itself there was plenty action, and by that I mean wrecks and spins, which was why the Safety Car (a Porsche?) got plenty of airtime. I think cars may have been getting hit on the warm up lap (just kidding). There were several penalties handed out for “avoidable contact.” The only way you could avoid contact in this race would be staying the parking lot (and you’d still probably get dinged).

In the GT Class (the only one I really care about), two BMW teams passed late for the lead and won the race. The Viper came in third, a good showing for a new team. The Corvettes came in fourth and fifth. Oh, the shame. I’m not sure if these are factory-sponsored teams or privateers. I’m also not sure if they’re based on the new vette (I don’t think so). Forgive me, me and dad (who more or less puts up with me watching these weird sports car races) got bacon cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes at Jack-in-the-Box during the race. But you’ll be happy to know that they tasted really good.

As for the coverage, okay, if you’ve read any of my other ALMS reports, you know the real reason why I’m watching. Kelli Stavast was there and cute and glowingly perky as ever. She’s got the whole pit lane reporting thing nailed, updating pit stops, talking about new tire construction, interviewing race winners, and looking good. There was a NASCAR race on Fox at the same time. I knew this because every time I flipped over there was a commercial on. Ha. ALMS has commercials too, not breaking in quite as often as NASCAR. But, ALMS has the cool commercials; high performance tires, sports cars, luxury cars, and NASCAR has their drivers out awkwardly pitching for random products.