Long Beach Friday Notebook

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

***Dries Vanthoor, who scored his third consecutive IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole for Sunday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, which came in his debut on the Southern California streets. Three of the four BMW M Team RLL drivers are rookies to the track this weekend.

***Vanthoor said: “I prepared as good as I could, even though I didn’t prepare the best, I feel like. But I feel like even in my GT days — I don’t want to call it days but it’s been only two years ago — I’ve always been reasonably OK with adapting to new tracks and different circumstances. So I think that’s something that helps me out now as well.”

***GTD pole-sitter Parker Thompson, who scored his second consecutive Long Beach pole, said he expected the class field to have gone quicker but attributed it to the different layers of tire rubber around the 1.968-mile that had been built up over the course of the day.

***Thompson said: “You’ve got IndyCar on the same weekend putting down rubber. You’ve got Stadium Super Trucks, you’ve got other cars out there. I thought the field would have collectively went faster, although it was very tight.”

***Three cars: No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06, No. 36 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R and No. 78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, all lost their fastest lap times due to bringing out red flags in the second practice session. The No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini, which also caused a red, was exempt due to the car stopping on track with a mechanical issue.

***Wickens set the fifth quickest time in GTD qualifying but was demoted to his second-best lap that put him eighth as a result of the penalty.

***Wickens explained: “I was on my first push lap, there was a yellow Ferrari (Brendan Iribe) in front of me, he aborted his lap in the exit of Turn 9 and went full driver’s right before Turn 10. I took my racing line on my push lap and he just drove into the side of my car, bent the right rear suspension, then I had to do the whole qualy with a damaged car. It sucks.”

***Issues, meanwhile, continued for the No. 45 WTR Lamborghini in qualifying, which saw Danny Formal climb from the car after completing a slow out lap. It is set to start from the rear of the 27-car field.

***The No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R is back to the chassis the team utilized in the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona, which suffered chassis-related damage in the race while going over the curbs in the Le Mans Chicane. A Cadillac spokesperson confirmed to Sportscar365 that the chassis was sent to Dallara’s U.S. outpost in Indianapolis for repairs and a full scan.

***Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle revealed that it is his first time at Long Beach in his storied nearly 40-year motorsport career. Kuratle was unable to be on-site in the last two editions at Sebring due to clashing FIA World Endurance Championship races.

***Prior to their arrival at Long Beach, Jenson Altzman and Robert Megennis completed a two-day test in Gradient Racing’s Ford Mustang GT3 at MotorSport Ranch in Cresson, Tex., which the Ford Performance Junior Driver Team driver felt served as good baseline for learning the car, team and getting reacquainted with his new co-driver.

***Altzman told Sportscar365: “That’s where I got to meet the whole team. Robert and I go-karted against each other years’ past, not in any great depths or battles but we kind of knew of each other. It was always a, ‘Hey, how’s it going’ in the paddock when we both raced Pilot Challenge. It was cool to get there and be like, ‘OK we’re now doing this as teammates.”

***Among the decals on the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette this weekend is GM Able – an initiative within GM that seeks ways to champion employees with disabilities, assisting their caregivers and educating allies. The group has grown rapidly in the last few years alongside a stream of voices pushing accessibility forward at General Motors for both employees and customers.

***Robert Wickens, who makes his GTD debut and WeatherTech Championship return this weekend, is set to announce an additional racing program on Tuesday alongside the remaining sprint races with DXDT.

***Both the JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche and AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R will remain on the west coast and be prepped for next month’s round at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca at Porsche Motorsport North America in nearby Carson, Calif.

***PMNA is headquartered at the second of two Porsche Experience Centers in the U.S.. The other is in Atlanta, where Porsche Cars North America (PCNA) has its headquarters.

***The Porsche Experience Center Los Angeles will host its third annual Motorsport-themed “Morning Shift” car culture event on Sunday morning. The popular gathering of Porsche enthusiasts will feature several race cars that have come straight from competition at the Grand Prix of Long Beach the afternoon prior.

***The Road Racing Drivers Club, in cooperation with the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach, celebrated the event’s 50th anniversary at a gala held Thursday evening at the Westin Hotel in Long Beach. A record crowd of nearly 600 racing luminaries representing a variety of racing series, including IndyCar, IMSA, NHRA, SRO and others were in attendance at the dinner, which honored Mario Andretti, Al Unser Jr and Brian Redman.

***Coverage of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach begins Saturday at 2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. EST) on USA Network and Peacock, with the race called by the NBC Sports’ team of Brian Till and Calvin Fish, with Dave Burns and Kevin Lee in pit lane.

***IMSA Radio will again anchor international coverage, available on YouTube, with the team of John Hindhaugh and Ryan Myrehn in the Ford Performance global broadcast booth.