SCV Exotics » Sports Car News

2010 Long Beach Grand Prix

Will — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 05:08:30 +0000

I had the pleasure of going down to Long Beach for the ALMS Practice and Race Friday and Saturday. As always both days were beautiful and pleasant. There is nothing quite like walking down the streets of downtown Long Beach and hearing the thundering roar of race motors echo off the skyscrapers just after dawn. Here is a very, very brief account of our days at the circuit.

Friday was a pretty crazy day. I happened to witness a Corvette’s brakes fail down the main straight. He hit the wall near turn 1 at about 120 MPH. The impact scattered tires everywhere and stuffed the car as far down the run off road as it could go.

Saturday was great as well. World Challenge qualifying started the day, followed by the Indy Lights. The drifters were out after that and mysteriously weren’t as good as in years past. Indy practice was on next and allowed us to grab lunch and visit the Lifestyle Expo. We then watched the ALMS race to finish the day. The race itself was very good with several key battles. The overall lead was a back and forth between the Aston Martin Lola and the HPD Acura ARX-01c. David Brabham brought the Acura home up front with a .353 second margin. Behind them in the GT class the Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 and the Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 had a good scuff with the Ferrari eventually losing out to the Porsche’s straight line speed.

All in all, it was another fun one at the races. We will be heading up to Monterrey for the ALMS race at Laguna Seca so look forward to that.

Honda’s HSV-010 GT Tests at Suzuka

Will — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:42:20 +0000

This car is currently being homologated to race in the Super GT series in Japan. It is Honda’s aborted replacement to the NSX. It looks as though we have missed out on an amazing car to drive, but we will have to suffice with watching it race. Members of HPD (Santa Clarita’s Honda Performance Development) division have expressed hope that the car will also be sent stateside to participate in the ALMS. For now, enjoy the sights and sounds of this beast lapping the legendary Suzuka Circuit.

State of the FIA

Will — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:29:35 +0000

As you may or may not know, the FIA is an all encompassing governing body for many of the premier forms of motorsport. The FIA has come under fire as of late for making late decisions on penalties after a race has been completed thereby demoting a drivers classification or disqualifying them all together. For those of us in the States who don’t have EuroSport, I’d like to show you a video I stumbled across on how far the mismanagement of the World Touring Car Championship has slipped. Looks pretty organized, eh?