USCC Long Beach Thoughts

The Long Beach Grand Prix is the most well known and well attended street race in the US and 2014 was no different with multiple race series filling up a weekend of racing. Saturday in particular is a full day with IndyCar qualifying and the Tudor United Sport Car race. As a big fan of Le Mans style racing I attended the race last year and enjoyed the battles on a crowded street circuit. Even with the merger and the end of the ALMS I had high hopes for this year. Unfortunately this would not be the case as the action this year was exciting but not as good as last year. The 20 car combined prototype and GT field proved too small to fully fill up the entire street circuit which eliminated some of the craziness that multi class racing is best known for. Nevertheless it's always great to see and hear some amazing racing machines up close and you can't get much closer than at a street circuit.

• The equivalence between the Daytona Prototypes and the P2 models might show just a few tenths between the two categories but the P2s were not in contention whatsoever.
• The #3 Corvette checked out early and was in a class of its own miles ahead of the other GT models.
• The C7 Corvette sounds just as fantastic as the C6 did before. The Daytona Prototype Corvettes might sound even angrier and louder though.
• The Skyactiv diesel Mazdas actually sound a bit better than Audi's R18 diesels but are pathetically slow. They look like a quick prototype but couldn't even compete with the GTs. Based on the comments from the crowd the program is negative marketing for Mazda at this point. One managed to blow up within five minutes.