2022 Hyundai Monterey Sports Car Championship
What the heck? IMSA in April? No sweltering heat. No down-to-the-wire battles for the championship title. No Ferraris.?.? We kicked off our 2022 major events calendar with a trip to Weathertech Raceway Laguna for the Hyundai Monterey Sports Car Championship race, round 5 of the 13 race IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship calendar.
There is something about the sound and fury and the intoxicating aroma of tire smoke, race fuel and hot brakes that triggers fond memories of experiences and friends. The whir of a wheel gun. The sound of an air jack. The hiss of a turbo charger. Sensory reminders pushing Oxytocin in our blood streams provide us that warm and fuzzy sentiment that everything is as it should be and perhaps even better. Hitting up our favorite track was just what was needed to end our doldrums and get us back to doing what we love. The spiritual ceremony of the sights and sounds, the ebb and flow of a race weekend all bringing us back to that familiar excitement.
IMSA weekend is always great because it always offers a little something for everyone. This year offered a lot of something for everyone. We can’t remember an event with so many cars. The paddock was jam-packed with entries for the four different series (WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Michelin Pilot Challenge, Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America, and the Porsche Carrera Cup of North America) under the IMSA banner. The main event featured 32 entries of sports and prototype racing cars, the Michelin Pilot race 41, Super Trofeo 31, and another 32 for the Porsche GT3 Cup. Between warmups, qualifying and, races, there was almost constant action on the 2.238 mile road course all weekend. Hell, the line of all of the series support/pace/safety cars along the pit lane would have made for a pretty decent field for a stand-alone series!. But as much as we love all of these series, we were primarily there for the main event.
The weekend was also abuzz with welcome news that Laguna Seca raceway was to expect a $9.7 million infusion of cash as Monterey County Board of Supervisors had approved earlier in the week funding to upgrade the track including track resurfacing and replacement of the pedestrian bridge over the main straight.
Track President & General Manager, John V. Narigi, announces future plans to the mass of fans on the pre-rage grid walk.
Starting on Saturday it was Ricky Taylor setting the standard in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARAX-05 as he set a blistering IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship track record for pole position. It was nearly a half-second quicker than the time set by his teammate Filipe Albuquerque last year.
Ricky Taylor setting the standard in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARAX-05.
With multi-class racing the hallmark of IMSA Saturday qualifying would not only reveal overall pole but the pole positions for the other three racing classes.
LMP2: Steven Thomas, No. 11 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA, 1:17.571
GTD Pro: Mathieu Jaminet, No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R , 1:23.142
GTD: Russell Ward, No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, 1:23.567
Sunday’s two-hour 40 minute race showed who was really prepared and who just got lucky. Wayne Taylor Racing proved to have the right sauce for the weekend as they took the win on Sunday, though it was a close victory as they finished only 1.080 seconds over the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Oliver Jarvis and Tom Blomqvist. In spite of starting from Pole, it wasn’t a walk away victory has the No. 10 Racing Acura had to run flat out for most of the race to seal the win with Filipe Albuquerque driving a triple stint of more than two hours behind the wheel. It was a master class on how to run a multi-class enduro. Laguna Seca is the exact opposite of the modern tracks you see on the F1 calendar. It’s not particularly long, super twisty in a few spots, and mostly narrow with gravel and dirt runoffs. Pucker factor high and margin of error slim. (Literally) threading a rather large prototype car through a larger field of much slower cars is a remarkable thing to behold.
In the LMP2 category John Farano and Louis Deletraz earned their first IMSA victory in the No. 8 ORECA.
The No. 8 ORECA on its way to victory.
Pfaff Motorsports claimed their second win in GTD Pro in the last two seasons at Laguna Seca in the No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3R and the first win at Laguna Seca for drivers Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet.
PFFAFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
In the first repeat GTD winners of the season, Jan Helen and Ryan Hardwick claimed victory in the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R.
No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R enters the (in)famous Corkscrew.
Laguna Seca may have occurred earlier in the IMSA calendar than in previous years removing some of the drama associated with a late season championship battle, but the atmosphere was just as electric. What more could anyone want? A massive grid of cars and multiple undercard events to fill the space in between.
As we have said on numerous occasions for anyone wanting to get their feet wet in modern racing, the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship is a great place to start. With multiple classes racing on track at the same time the racing action is near-constant and the cars have familiar names like Cadillac, Acura, Porsche, Mercedes, Lexus, BMW and Aston Martin to name a few. (And sadly, for the first time either of us can remember, not a Ferrari to be seen….sniff, sniff)
We just finished it and already can’t wait for next year, or perhaps we suggest adding another California race for IMSA? (Not to sound too curmudgeonly, but in the old days, both Laguna Seca and Sears Point/Infineon and later Laguna Seca and Long Beach hosted two major California sports car events per season. If the powers that be are listening, we humbly submit that CA can handle at least two races!)
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Something a little extra…for safety’s sake…
Beginning a few years ago we started paying attention to something rather ubiquitous on the pitlane. Every driver and most of crew members wear some level of head protection….yes the helmet. While some are pretty plain, others are intricate, colorful, funny, clever and even sometimes a little sentimental. We thought this was a perfect occasion to host a stand alone gallery featuring the humble #brainbucket.
Of course, we go to the races to see the cars battle, but we’re also fans of the drivers crews and bosses. IMSA, maybe more than most race series, brings racers together from all forms, levels and eras of motorsport. If you’ve ever wanted to meet a current/past hero from F1, Indy, DTM, BTCC/WTCC, WEC or NASCAR, an IMSA paddock is a great place to see and be seen. Here are some of the people of the IMSA series.
As always, we leave you with a super gallery of some of the thousands of images we captured over the weekend. Please enjoy!
-The Loud Pedal
