I drove Long Beach, California with three cracked vertebrae
Wow! We’ve made it to round 4 of lockdown and the first track that’s still on the (currently notional) Indycar calendar today. Long Beach: one long curvy straight, some twiddly bits, a short straight, a hairpin, the Queen Mary docked in the background. Bumps, walls, palm trees. Al Unser, Jr’s won five of the last seven, and was punted from the lead of another. It’s the first of two Indycar trips to California, the last road course till Detroit in June, and the last circuit this year where the Pacific Ocean is within sight of the track.
They’re racing on the classic, very short 1990s Long Beach layout, with a relatively simple run between the first corner complex and the hairpin leading onto Shoreline Drive. The fountain and aquarium haven’t yet been built, and almost all the twisty bits have been cut out. This is a pleasing state of existence. Long Beach has been part of Indycar’s furnishings since the city told Bernie Ecclestone where he could put his escalating race fees in 1984, but despite that there are only four previous LBGP winners taking part in this edition. Michael Andretti and Paul Tracy got first-ever Indycar victories here in 1986 and 1993, and Danny Sullivan got his next-to-last one in 1992. Al Unser, Jr scooped the rest, with four straight wins between 1988 and 1991 and another one with Team Penske last year after the retirements from both his teammates. If you’re interested, 1994’s traditional Pro-Am celebrity race was won by Brian Redman and not for the last time dancing-and-acting professional Alfonso Ribeiro, proving that the road between racing and Dancing With The Stars really does go in both directions.
After three races, a look at the 1995 championship table tells us that they might as well not have happened. With 22 points on offer every weekend, no one has more than 32 overall, with the top 5 separated by 4 points, equal to a ninth-place finish. Despite his no-score at Miami, Newman-Haas’s Paul Tracy leads the standings, and despite no-scores in Queensland and Phoenix respectively Jacques Villeneuve and Stealth Bobby Rahal sit second and third. Firestone Mule Scott Pruett sits level with those two without having shown obvious speed, and coulda-won-in-Miami Mo Gugelmin sits just behind in fifth. Phoenix’s podium of Robby Gordon, Michael Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi sit further back owing to that being the first finish of the season for the snakebit trio.
What happened in qualifying?
Qualifying saw the Newman-Haas duo Andretti and Tracy take both front row slots for their Lola-Fords, with an intriguing second row of barely-any-points-so-far Gil de Ferran and Al Unser, Jr. Top 12 below:
1. Michael Andretti 52.582, Newman-Haas L/F/G
2. Paul Tracy +0.009, Newman-Haas L/F/G
3. Gil de Ferran ® +0.184, Hall R/M/G
4. Al Unser, Jr +0.192, Team Penske P/M/G
5. Mo Gugelmin +0.195, PacWest R/F/G
6. Bobby Rahal +0.294, Rahal-Hogan L/M/G
7. Teo Fabi +0.299, Forsythe R/F/G
8. Jimmy Vasser +0.420, Ganassi R/F/G
9. Emerson Fittipaldi +0.453, Team Penske P/M/G
10. Scott Pruett +0.563, Patrick L/F/F
11. Jacques Villeneuve +0.658, Team Green R/F/G
12. Christian Fittipaldi ® +0.681, Walker R/F/G
Gordon 14th, Herta 15th, Sullivan 17th, Johansson 24th. At the back, first starts of the season for Carlos Guerrero, Marco Greco and Franck Freon. Guerrero on his Indycar debut puts the Dick Simon Lola 19th on the grid, ahead of quite a few series regulars and both his teammates, but we’ll never hear from him again.
As this race isn’t actually live and West Coast timezones are meaningless in Fantasy Land, we’ll start this one at 6pm BST Sunday. Video below. See you then!
