The MV Skinlab Grand Prix of Long Beach, Round 2 of the VSCA SportsCar Championship proved to be the dramatic race it was expected to be.
Interrupted by two caution periods, the shortest race of the season at only 100 minutes length turned into a hectic whirlwind in the streets of Long Beach.
Coming out on top was the #111 HAC Racing Cadillac V-Series.R GTP with drivers Christophe Demay and Matthew Routon.
For HAC Racing, Saturday’s trip to victory lane was the second win in the last three championship rounds dating back to Petit Le Mans of last year when the team took its first win in GTD class.
Arriving in victory lane of the famous street circuit, Demay had this so say:
“We scratched our heads a lot, to find the correct strategy, or at least the best way to stay adaptable. We ended up with me in the car for the start, to help put our car the most in front as possible, and then Matthew would have to do the defensive work.”
“During the race, we stayed 100% focused on spotting the other to not get involved in crashes. We dodged a lot of those, thanks to that. Matthew did a great job there.”
“We knew our pace was competitive, but we were surprised to see the amount of mistakes and crashes around us. My stint was really tense, we were on the edge all race. I’m happy we got this win, it means a lot.”
Coming in second place, just over eight seconds back was the #88 Cadillac of DS Racing eSports Team with Ricardo Santos and Pedro Espadinha. The team led 23 laps, but lost the lead on lap 52 when the team made its lone pit stop and driver change. With only 15 laps remaining in the race, Santos was unable to recapture the lead but brought home the team’s first top-five of the year.
In a nice bounce back from an abysmal season opener at Daytona in January, the #4 Fischer Motorsport Porsche 963 GTP with drivers Thomas Martin and Patrick Rall completed the podium finishers, taking third place.
The #830 Team Heartcore Cadillac finished fourth, as Jan-Philipp Wied and Jakob Lehmann teamed up to earn the organization’s first top-five in VSCA.
Rounding out the top-five was DS Racing eSports Team’s second entry, the #42 Cadillac with Francisco Pereira and Tomas Mora, with a gap of 13.6 seconds.
Defending series champions #1 Grizzly Motorsports with drivers Scott Meredith and Alex Penn took sixth place.
Pole sitters #15 Composite Performance with Patrick Fogel and Nicholas Johnston had to live with a disappointing seventh-place finish. On lap 16 Johnston had to take the emergency exit in turn nine, relegating the #15 car from the lead to P5 in the process.
In the following laps, the Lincolnton, North Carolina native fought his way back to third place until the team made its driver swap pit stop on lap 36, sending the team back to ninth position.
Things went awry for Composite Performance on lap 47. As the second full-course yellow came out, Patrick Fogel was racing through turn four, only to be startled with a multi-car incident coming up directly in front, leaving Fogel with no time to react.
Sustaining severe damage in the crash, the #15 Cadillac had to come in for repairs and lost two laps.
Involved in the same incident and also losing a lap to a race control penalty earlier in the race, the #3 Mayer Simspeed Performance Porsche with Jason Birnie and Niclas Pedersen finished five laps down in P8, unable to repeat its winning performance from Daytona.
World Of SimRacing Team’s #51 Cadillac finished ninth, five laps down as well, after getting hit hard on lap four, by the #278 Porsche of Stop N’ Go Racing, resulting in significant rear-end damage to the Spanish team’s race car of Dani Fonte and Álvaro Martínez.
The #278 Stop N’ Go Racing machine with Thomas Mørk and Thomas Sorensen finished tenth, nine laps down.
Trading Paints Racing, who were runners-up at Daytona in January had a nightmare of a race, as Selena Ward and Caeton Bomersbach ended up P11, ten laps down. The team was involved in one of the more bizarre accidents of the race, sustaining damage after car contact with the #992 Porsche under yellow flag conditions.
The #6 Torque Freak Racing Porsche with Neil Middleton and Jonathan Dance finished 12th and last in class, 12 laps down after Middleton hit the tire barriers in turn eight on lap four. But things turned for the worse for the team on lap 25, when Middleton found the concrete wall in turn one.
HAC Racing new championship leaders
By way of their second top-five and first win of the season, the #111 HAC Racing Cadillac takes the championship lead away from #3 Mayer Simspeed Performance who now trail in second place, 104 points back.
Team Heartcore have been flying under the radar so far this season, but sit in a comfortable third place, looking at a 113-point deficit.
DS Racing eSports Team has its #88 and #42 entries sitting in fourth and fifth position, respectively at 147 and 163-point gaps.
Sprint Cup season opens with HAC Racing on top
Long Beach also marked the first race of the VSCA Sprint Cup. By winning the race, the #111 HAC Racing Cadillac jumped out of the gate, to take the championship lead, holding a 30-point lead over DS Racing eSports Team’s #88 Cadillac and the #4 Fischer Motorsport Porsche and Team Heartcore #830 Cadillac in fourth place. DS Racing eSports Team’s #42 Cadillac is fifth, 109 points back.
All-time classic 12 Hours of Sebring up next
The series now takes a break before returning to action at Sebring on March 23rd for its all-time classic, the 12 Hours of Sebring, the second longest race of the season.
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