BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach
Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach
5 p.m. EDT April 13, 2019
NBC Sports Network, NBC Sports Gold
Radio Le Mans and IMSA.com
ACURA GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH
• Acura becomes the title sponsor of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach this year, the 45th renewal North America’s longest-running and most successful temporary street circuit event. Saturday’s WeatherTech Sports Car Championship race, the BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix, features two Team Penske Acura ARX-05 prototypes.
• Launched in 1986 as the first Japanese luxury automotive brand, Acura is a leading nameplate that delivers Precision Crafted Performance – a commitment to evocative styling, high performance and innovative engineering, all built on a foundation of quality and reliability. Both Acura and its American Honda parent have their U.S. headquarters in Torrance, California.
ACURA TEAM PENSKE
• The combination of Acura Motorsports, Team Penske and the Acura ARX-05 DPi resulted in an encouraging first year of IMSA competition, highlighted by a 1-2 finish at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The inaugural season for Acura Team Penske also saw the team record two poles – Juan Pablo Montoya here in Long Beach and at Helio Castroneves at Mid-Ohio – and five podium finishes in 2018.
• The Acura ARX-05 is the latest in a line of endurance prototypes to be fielded by the company, dating to 1991, just five years after the launch of the Acura brand. Based on the successful ORECA 07 chassis, the ARX-05 DPi features Acura-specific bodywork and utilizes the race-proven, production-based Acura AR35TT twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 engine.
• The four drivers sharing Penske’s two Acura ARX-05 prototypes – Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya in the #6 Acura, and Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor in the #7 – account for four Rolex 24 overall victories, two WeatherTech Championship titles, five Indianapolis 500 wins and seven Formula One trophies.
• To celebrate IMSA’s 50th year of endurance sports car racing, both Acura Team Penske entries this year feature “throwback” orange and white liveries commemorating the consecutive IMSA Camel GT Comptech Acura Camel Lights champions of 1991-93.
MEYER SHANK RACING
• IMSA’s GTD category is not a part of the IMSA weekend at Long Beach, but the Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3s will return to the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for the May 3-5 Acura Sports Car Challenge at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
ACURA, HPD AT LONG BEACH
• Acura Motorsports and its performance arm, Honda Performance Development, have recorded a total of nine sports car victories at the Grand Prix of Long Beach, second only to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for Acura and HPD.
• This total includes three Long Beach wins for Acura, and six victories under the HPD umbrella. The victories all came in a consecutive, six-year period from 2008-13, and included “double wins” [triumphs in both LMP1 and LMP2] in 2009, 2012 and 2013.
• Acura’s initial victory on the streets of Long Beach came in 2008, with David Brabham and Scott Sharp winning the LMP2 class at the wheel of their Patron Highcroft Racing ARX-01b.
• One year later, Acura “did the double” for the first time. The manufacturer claimed both the overall/LMP1 win, with Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud driving the de Ferran Racing Acura 02a; while the Fernandez Racing duo of Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz won LMP2 and finished third overall in their Acura ARX-01b.
• With HPD supplying customer sports car racing teams from 2010-2016, the company scored additional wins at Long Beach from 2010 through ’13.
• The streak started with Brabham and Pagenaud – now teammates at Patron Highcroft Racing – taking their HPD ARX-03c to the overall and LMP1 victory. in 2011, HPD found Victory Circle again in LMP2, powering the Level 5 Motorsports Lola B11/40 Spyder to the class win.
• HPD scored the “double” again in 2012. Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr drove to the overall victory in their LMP1 Muscle Milk Racing ARX-03a; while LMP2 was again won by Scott Tucker and Christophe Bouchut, this time driving an HPD ARX-03b.
• The company’s most recent wins – prior to Acura’s return to prototype competition last year – came in 2013. Graf and Luhr repeated their LMP1 and overall triumph from the previous year, while LMP2 was claimed by Sharp and Guy Cosmo in their Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b.