Four weeks after winning the 12 Hours of Sebring, CORE autosport is en route to the streets of Long Beach, California, where it is undefeated in the Prototype Challenge class.
A celebrated event in North American motorsports, CORE autosport has raced and won at the Grand Prix of Long Beach three times (2011 – 2013). The PC category took a two-year hiatus from the popular street race in 2014 – 2015 after the merger of ALMS and GRAND-AM. The addition of the PC class brings the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship grid to 25 entries this weekend.
For Long Beach, CORE downshifts from the two longest races of the season (Daytona and Sebring) to the shortest race of the season at one hour and 40 minutes. A short race time and sharing the track with IndyCar means limited practice time (two hours and 25 minutes) before Friday evening qualifying.
Thankfully, the weather forecast shows sunny skies throughout the event, but any yellow flags will cost teams valuable track time.
CORE won Long Beach in 2011 with Gunnar Jeannette and Ricardo Gonzalez, in 2012 with Ryan Dalziel and Alex Popow and in 2013 with Colin Braun and Jon Bennett.
CORE’s 2013 win was on a one-stop strategy when the race was still two hours in length.
Braun officially led eight laps overall in the 2013 race.
Despite winning Sebring, a DNF at Daytona has CORE third in the PC team standings and sixth in the driver standings.
CORE recently announced plans to field two cars in the 2016 Red Bull Global RallyCross season.
Jon Bennett
Driver: No. 54 ORECA FLM09
“I’m thrilled to be back at Long Beach with Colin Braun and CORE autosport. This has always been a favorite event of mine and I can wait to get back on the Long Beach streets.
“I’m not sure why, but I love street circuits and Long Beach is a great one. It’s fun for the spectators and there is always a festival atmosphere. Plus, there is the secret satisfaction of driving a purpose built race car at the limit on public streets.
“During our down time in Long Beach, I always look forward to attending the celebration at Circle Porsche on Wednesday evening. I also look forward to seeing the progress of the new, exciting Porsche Experience Center, near LAX, which is nearing completion.
“The upgrades to the PC car, especially the traction control, should help us exit the slow tight corners like the hairpin. I don’t expect we will need to re-learn the technique, just get the wheel straight and ‘let her rip!’
“Long Beach is our shortest race of the year. Mistakes do not erase easily with time like they may at Daytona or Sebring. It’s time to bring your focus and aggression A-game.”
Colin Braun
Driver: No. 54 ORECA FLM09
“I’m looking forward to going back to Long Beach! It’s a great race and it’s always good to see all the people that come out. The last couple of years, I’ve kept an eye on it via TV, wishing we were there, so I’m really happy to be back in the PC cars.
“It’s an interesting track for our cars. Most of the corners are pretty tight, so the PC cars don’t get to use all the downforce they make, but there’s also a couple quick corners that our cars make pretty good downforce on and it’s pretty fun.
“When we raced in 2013, I led the race overall for a bit, so the PC cars are certainly quick. The GTLM cars make a lot of good mechanical traction and grip though. It’s always been a pretty tight field there across the classes. I think with the traction control system on the PC cars, that’ll help us a lot in the low speed corners. That could potentially open the gap a bit to the GTLM cars.
“A track like Long Beach is really hard to pass on, so track position is really important. However, with the drive-time rules for our class, it makes for a pretty narrow window to make the drive-time requirements and have enough fuel for a one-stop strategy. You’d have to catch all the right yellows. There’s a lot of factors that will play into making it a one-stop versus a two-stop race.”