After a rainy practice session, qualifying for the American Le Mans Series at Long Beach started out dry, but after the first ten-minute segment, rain rolled in and stopped the proceedings. Minutes after the session was called, sun came out, sending a rainbow arching over the disappointed fans and drivers.
The real challenge is that no one has run any dry laps to find a dry set-up; everyone will be guessing on everything from gearing to suspension settings to tire compounds. As former Corvette driver Johnny O'Connell said on ESPN3, the race will be about drivers.
The race grid will be ordered by team points after the Sebring 12-Hour race within class and the classes will grid P1 through GTC.
The #16 Dyson Racing Lola-Mazda of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith will start from the pole, even though they ran only a few laps in practice. The #6 Muscle Milk HPD ARX-03a of Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr will start second.
Michael Marsal in the #20 Dyson Pacing Lola-Mazda is driving his first race in the powerful P1 prototype, and he has four wet laps only; he has never driven Long Beach on dry pavement. He will be starting third.
Guy Smith was not worried about his chances. “Obviously the situation is not ideal, but historically Long Beach has been good for the Dyson team and myself. We’ve had pole positions here before, and I have won here,” he told alms.com. This is a new car so we‘d like to have more time to get it ready but I know with our experience we’ll be able to still be successful tomorrow. So it should make for a good race.
“It will be a real challenge tomorrow, with this many cars and being tight and twisty. If you get behind a GT car in Turn 1, you can get balled up behind them until the fountain. We'll just have to deal with it.
