Luis Diaz - A lap of Long Beach’s legendary circuit

The Long Beach street circuit is the longest-continuous running temporary road course on city streets in the United States of America. The first event on September 28, 1975 changed the course of racing in the America when Chris Pook staged the first race on the city streets in Long Beach, Calif. The Formula 500 race won by Brian Redman would set the tone of the future for the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Jean-Pierre Jarier and Mario Andretti. Photo by LBGPA.

On March 28, 1977, Formula One visited the circuit with Clay Regazzoni took the race winning honors. One year later on April 3rd, American F1 driver Mario Andretti did a superb job of avoiding trouble in the opening lap to earn the victory. It was a blistering hot day in the Los Angeles area but the fans waited with baited breath to see the homeland hero take the win.

In 1983, F1 ran their final grand prix, turning the track over to the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) allowing the Long Beach race to live on. History has been made many times at the venue over the years and this year will not be an exception. Champ Car World Series won control of the CART assets and continued open-wheel racing in Long Beach, along with the Atlantic Championship series.

On February 22, 2008, the Indy Racing League struck a deal with the CCWS owners, Jerry Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven, to unified the two top open-wheel series in America. Due to the already set schedule prior to the unification, the IndyCar Series regulars will be in Japan while on the same weekend the Champ Car DP01s will run their farewell event in Long Beach. Those that have made the move to IndyCar this year will run for points; those who have not will simply enjoy their final race under the Champ Car banner.

In 2006, due to the demise of the Trans-Am Series, Long Beach added the Grand-Am Rolex Series. Last year, the American Le Mans Series made their debut and they return to take on the challenge on the tight 1.968-mile, 11-turn circuit for 100 minutes of what is sure to be an action-packed race.

Fernandez Racing’s driver Luis Diaz, in his own words, will give our viewers an insight to a lap of the Long Beach circuit. The Hispanic racer was named the 2006 Driver of the Year in Mexico. Born in Mexico City, Diaz was not yet born when Redman won Long Beach in 1975. His teammate, Adrian Fernandez, has actually competed in Long Beach 14 times, quite a few more starts than that of Diaz. However, it is fitting that the polesitter for the Rolex Series Daytona Prototypes in 2006, who went on to win the race with teammate Scott Pruett take us on our tour.

Luis Diaz. Photo by Luis Betancourt.

Diaz moved to the American Le Mans Series in 2007 with Fernandez as one of the three Acura teams. Now in his second year with the team, Diaz, known as “Chapulín” (grasshopper) amongst his friends, made his USA debut at Long Beach in 2000 (Indy Lights). This will be his seventh start on the street circuit, including his two years in the Atlantic series.

Diaz will play an more active role for the team with his co-driver Fernandez double-duty weekend. The co-team owner and driver will compete in his home event with the NASCAR Nationwide Series in Mexico City. Between public appearances and on-track activities, the two racers will be busy. Diaz will even be pumping E85 fuel in nearby Brentwood as part of the ALMS’ EPIC Pump Promotion on Wednesday.

The first practices for the ALMS take place on Thursday. Diaz will qualify the No. 15 Lowe’s Fernandez Racing Acura ARX 01-b on Friday. Saturday is race day.

A Lap of Long Beach with Luis Diaz

First of all, Long Beach is one of the nicest street courses of all because it is a very challenging circuit with a mix of straights and turns and all of kinds of special corners. Even the main straight (Shoreline Drive) is not a typical straightaway. It has a huge curve in the middle and while it is flat out, it makes passing tricky especially with the speed differential between the prototypes and the GT cars.

After Shoreline Drive comes very heavy braking and a very quick downshift from sixth to second gear for Turn One. This is a left-hand, second-gear corner. You can use the inside curb a little bit and you have to try to roll a lot of speed through this corner. There is a very short straight that takes us to the Fountain Corner and Turns Two and Three. We call it that because inside there is a fountain. It is a very slow first-gear corner. You can use a little bit of the inside of the fountain curbing to help the car turn a little more for this right-hand turn.

After you exit and you push it to third gear as you approach a medium-speed right-hand corner which is Turn Four. Those three corners - Turns Two, Three and Four - are the tightest on the circuit. From there you approach Turn Five, which is another third-gear corner. The difference with this right-hand corner is that the exit is pretty wide. It is an off-camber exit to a long straight and it is very important to have a good exit here.

#15 Lowe’s Fernandez Racing Lola B06-43 Acura: Adrian Fernandez, Luis Diaz. Photo by Bob Heathcote.

Turn Six is next which is another braking zone in a very low grip area, and you downshift from fifth gear to third gear. You have to be very smooth under braking here. This is a left-hand corner and it is very nice because it is very wide. At the exit of this corner coming up to Turn Seven there is a crown in the track and it is pretty nice for the drivers to exit there and approach the crown because you can feel the car get lighter here.

From there you downshift from fifth to third for a right-hand corner which is Turn Eight. That brings you to the back straight (Seaside Way) which is one of the most important straights because you can do a lot of passing here. At the end of the straight comes Turn Nine, a very tricky braking point and you downshift from sixth to third for this right-hand corner. It is extremely bumpy under braking and you have to miss the regular apex that we normally would like to use to avoid the bumps.

Then there is a mix of corners in Turns 10 and 11 and you have work hard here because you do the right-hand corner (Turn Nine) followed by a double- apex left-hand corner where you have to roll a lot of speed because you are going to approach one of the trickiest corners (Turn 11) of the circuit which is the hairpin. It is very tight corner. You have to downshift to first gear and try to point the car as best you can to exit onto the main straight. And that is a lap of the Long Beach circuit.

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Orlando Motors Sport üzerinde şu anda okumakta olduğunuz 'Luis Diaz - A lap of Long Beach’s legendary circuit' isimli yazı 16 Apr 2008 tarihinde, saat: 23:25 'de admin tarafından gönderilmiş.

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