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There’s something about Long Beach that brings out the very best in every IndyCar driver year after year. When they get to the fabled street race, the second most prestigious and important event on the Verizon IndyCar Series schedule, great things happen.
And what a setting. Blue skies and sunshine, perfect spring weather at America’s second busiest sea port, which, for one weekend every year becomes the epicentre of road racing in the United States.
The temporary street circuit that blasts down Shoreline Drive and into a tight left-hander for turn one, through the famous ‘Fountain’ turn ends with the slowest hairpin in all of American racing to bring cars back onto the long main straight. The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach is the road racing equivalent of the Indianapolis 500, and there are few more beautiful sights in racing than Long Beach on race day.
Fittingly, the fortieth running of the street race that revitalised the streets around which first Formula One, then ChampCars and now IndyCars race, will go down as one of the greatest chapters in it’s history.
The combination of a racy circuit that features more passing opportunities than most temporary circuits afford, and the desire of every driver on the grid to win the Long Beach Grand Prix and be mentioned in the same breath as Michael and Mario Andretti, Al Unser Jr, Juan Pablo Montoya and Alex Zanardi, is just about unbeatable for sheer drama.
Long Beach can be a funny old event. What seems like a fairly straightforward sort of race, with drivers minding their own business, can be turned on it’s head in a split second and suddenly there’s chaos.
We’ve seen it time and time again: maximum drama, and, often, a surprise winner. We had that and more on Sunday.
The greats of IndyCar racing have gone to Victory Lane at Long Beach, stamping their indelible mark on the Indy 500 of North American road racing. The very best – Zanardi, Paul Tracy, Vasser and Sebastien Bourdais – have won multiple times at the Beach.
Now, you can add England’s Mike Conway to that list. His team, Ed Carpenter Racing is scrappy one-car outfit at times lost in a sea of powerful, multi-car teams – the Ganassis and Penskes of the world.
Team owner Carpenter opted to put Conway in the seat for the road and street course events and that decision paid off big-time on Sunday afternoon as Conway, an unflappable Brit with two IndyCar Series wins under his belt, drove through late-race carnage for a memorable victory.
Perhaps it was a stolen win, for the race appeared poised to be fought out between Ryan Hunter-Reay, James Hinchcliffe, Australia’s Will Power and promising American Josef Newgarden. Indeed, Hunter-Reay, the 2012 IndyCar Series champion, had led 51 laps and appeared to have the strongest car.
Then, with 24 laps to run, things turned wild. Newgarden got out of the pits ahead of Hunter-Reay and Hinchcliffe, but cold tires almost certainly meant that the Nashville native wasn’t going to be able to hold off RHR for long.
Yet, Hunter-Ready displayed a startling lack of impatience, trying an ill-advised move into turn four, which put both his car and Newgarden’s into the wall.
A victim of cruel circumstance, Hinchcliffe was caught up in the mess. Hunter-Reay bounced into Helio Castroneves, who arrived at the wrong moment, the Brazilian’s car heading for the fence as Conway and Power somehow darted through.
As they say, better to be lucky than good. Three cars behind were not so lucky, and suddenly the track was blocked.
Hinchcliffe would later express frustration with his Andretti Autosport teammate Hunter-Reay. Team owner Sarah Fisher did her best to hide her own anger, but it wasn’t hard to see that she was seething.
A lot of good race cars were torn up due to Hunter-Reay’s impatience, and RHR was obviously in the bad books with his owner, Andretti, who was disappointed at seeing two of his cars wrecked at once.
And with good reason – you just can’t make a pass at turn four and get away with it.
I was disappointed, too, because RHR failed to take responsibility for a mess that was clearly of his doing. The best the Floridian came up with was that he and Newgarden could have given each other a bit more room to avoid the incident.
Wrong, Ryan. Just plain wrong. This one was all on you. That’s not Hunter-Reay’s style. He isn’t a dirty driver.
Sometimes, the red mist descends. Everyone wants to win Long Beach, I guess, but man, there are ways to go about it, and better passing zones later in the lap. He could’ve taken Newgarden down the back straight, and would likely have done so with Newgarden’s tires still cold.
On the restart, with less than twenty to go, New Zealand’s Scott Dixon was out front. On cold tires, with the handling going away, he managed to hold off Conway, who’d started in seventeenth and rebounded from a broken wing early in the race, for much longer than I thought he ever would.
In third at that stage was Power, whose own race was shrouded in controversy after contact with Simon Pagenaud earlier, which might have drawn a penalty, but eventually did not. It was a classic Chrome Horn job, one to make NBC commentator Paul Tracy, the finest exponent of that questionable move, beam with pride.
Speaking of the Thrill from West Hill, Tracy was a breath of fresh air in the commentary box debut.
A few more caution laps at the end might have saved Dixon, who was short on fuel, and had to pit with two laps remaining, basically handing the win to Conway. Power followed him home, and third was impressive rookie Carlos Muñoz.
Juan Pablo Montoya, the 1999 winner of the Toyota Grand Prix, came home in fourth, a marked improvement in his second race back from NASCAR. Dixon had his fair share of detractors, after questionable contact late in the race that wrecked Justin Wilson’s suspension and, thus, his race.
It wasn’t a good day Chip Ganassi Racing, either. Australia’s Ryan Briscoe was an early casualty, Tony Kanaan was taken out in the Hunter-Reay/Newgarden melee, and Charlie Kimball’s engine gave up under caution when the young American was running sixth.
Pagenaud was angry at Will Power, and Power, the IndyCar Series points leader, apologised on television and said he didn’t blame the Frenchman. Castroneves vented on Twitter but removed the Tweet soon after. Bourdais was angry at himself for crashing twice after starting on the front row.
Everyone, it seemed, had a bone to pick with someone or themselves. What an afternoon!
There’s two weeks for the IndyCar boys to get their feuds squared away before the series reconvenes at Barber Motorsports Park. What an exciting start to the 2014 season! If the rest of the year is as good as the first two races, we’re in for one hell of a championship!
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