Chicanery #24 - Long Beach Love

Introduction
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach
No GTD Pro at Long Beach this year, GTP and GTD only
Qualifying
Vasser Sullivan front row lockout for GTD
31 AXR Cadillac on pole for GTP after an eventful session → Pipo Derani with the bin it and win it strategy (locked up and got into the tire barriers but still managed to get pole position)
Argy Bargy between Bourdais and Rockenfeller
Race
Good race or no?
#12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus gets a penalty for moving out of line before the start
Good battle between Porsche, BMW, and Cadillac,
BMW continuing their streak on bungled strategy calls (0-3 now) → Ended up leaving Yelloly out too long after everyone else pitted, and then a yellow came out
#25 BMW and #6 Porsche trade blows
First race where the Mustang GT3s did not have bodywork issues (Insert confetti noise)
Race starts out calm, then delves into chaos later:
#70 Inception McLaren gets into the wall, then collects the #120 Porsche GTD with it
WTR Acura crashes going into turn 1 again (this time it’s the 40!)
Felipe Nasr and Connor De Phillippi go at → De Phillippi gets into the back of the #7 Porsche (just a little love tap!)
Chaos at the hairpin → #6 Porsche Penske gets spun after contact from a Lambo GTD (Lambo was later penalized for the contact, maybe not necessary), this leads to everyone checking up and causing an extremely silly traffic jam situation
#25 gets more damage from the incident → front end damage and rear damage, gets repaired but then ends up in the tire barriers later, officially taking the car out of contention
01 Cadillac brake checks the #31
01 Cadillac wins in GTP (the strategy of taking no tires worked out for them)
#89 Vasser Sullivan wins in GTD
IndyCar Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach
Pre-Race stuff
F2 Champion Theo Pourchaire fills in for David Malukas at Arrow McLaren → Recovery for Malukas taking longer than expected as there are still pins in his arm
Qualifying
Arrow McLaren disaster class unfortunately → none made it to the final round of qualifying
Felix Rosenqvist on pole
Race
Good race or no?
McLaren’s troubles continue
Pato gets into the back of Rossi → claims that he got shoved by Blomqvist and that the incident was not his fault (turned out to not be true, and he received a penalty for avoidable contact
Rasmussen gets into the wall and collects Harvey with him
Penalty for Lundgaard of RLL → unsafe release, caused contact with Kirkwood on pitlane
Contact between Newgarden and Herta → racing incident or not?
Scott Dixon clinches the win
Theo Pourchaire does good for his debut (finished p15 or p16 and earned the “biggest mover” award)
Formula Drift at Long Beach
First event of the FD US calendar
Some driver shuffles
Ben Hobson replacing Chelsea Denofa
Adam LZ left the Ford RTR program
Travis Reeder not running this year
Andy Hateley, Derek Madison, and Rudy Hansen up from ProSpec
Hiroya Minowa joined FD US (he’s only 14!!!) → won in FD JP last year
James Deane barbequed his Mustang in practice
New qualifying format
Versus single car runs, Top 32 is now seeded by battles
Idea is for for fans trackside to get more action
Hiroya Minowa qualified P1, Adam LZ P2
OZ1 really catching out a lot of drivers
Rain came down part way through Top 32 and didn’t stop
Caught out the likes of Ryan Tuerck and Deane
Deane v Hurst slugfest in Top 16 → went OMT
Both had INC lead runs but fabulous chase runs, forcing the OMT
James Deane would win in a Cinderella story after the practice fire
Simon Olsen would take P2 and Odi Bakchis P3