Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach 2015: Friday Notes and Photos

Photo by Ken Stouffer

Although it’s only my second year here in any capacity, this is one of my all-time favorite events. The street course and the walls that line it are unforgiving at best, which makes racing here intimidating and difficult. Passing zones are few, and getting a good jump on the competition by qualifying well is more important here that at many circuits where these series run.

Ricky Taylor, of Wayne Taylor Racing took the pole in his Daytona Prototype Corvette for Saturday’s Tudor Championship race. And Bill Auberlen for BMW RLL took the pole in GTLM. The GTLM category should be pretty exciting considering how close the cars are in this class. At just 100 minutes, this race will depend on your team having the best strategy, few or no mistakes, and a reliable car.

Here are some of my favorite photos from today:

Ferrari coming into turn 11

Porsche through the hairpin

Fast run through turn 10

RHR through the hairpin

Luca Filippi

C7R through 11

Ryan Hunter Reay

Top down

Indy Car through the trees

BMW hunting down the Porsche

Ferrari in the chute between turn 9 and 10

BMW

Corvette getting serviced

Ken Stouffer

I've been around some form of racing since I was a kid. First hanging around Ascot in Southern California. Then, after moving to Texas as a teen, I got hooked on drag racing and did that for almost fifteen years. In between I have raced Dirt bikes and Quads. 2011 Marked my 8th and final year racing up Pikes Peak: Five in the Pro Quad division and three in Time Attack. Future racing plans are in the works, but until then I'm at the track shooting for My Life at Speed as much as I possibly can.