{"id":272767,"date":"2026-04-17T16:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T16:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/272767\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T16:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T16:07:11","slug":"long-beach-event-of-the-year-for-acura-sportscar365","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/272767\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach \u201cEvent of the Year\u201d for Acura \u2013 Sportscar365"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photo: Brandon Badroui\/IMSA<\/p>\n

Renger van der Zande says he\u2019s hoping to deliver Acura\u2019s first overall victory in the Grand Prix of Long Beach in more than 15 years, with the Dutchman believing this weekend\u2019s edition could be the manufacturer\u2019s best chance in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP era.<\/p>\n

Van der Zande, who has two previous overall wins in the 100-minute street race, both in Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac prototypes in 2022 and 2024, will be looking to send the brand, which serves as the title sponsor of the event, back to victory lane for the first time since 2009 when Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud took top overall honors in their Acura ARX-02a LMP1 machine.<\/p>\n

While there have been three additional overall wins by Honda-powered prototypes since, including back-to-back victories by Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr in 2012-13 with Muscle Milk Pickett Racing, neither the Acura ARX-05 DPi nor ARX-06 LMDh car have broken through on the Southern California streets.<\/p>\n

The No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of van der Zande and Nick Yelloly finished 11th in last year\u2019s race after van der Zande was forced into an unscheduled stop to replace the car\u2019s rear deck that was damaged by contact with the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 of Mathieu Jaminet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the event of the year for Acura,\u201d said van der Zande. \u201cThis is an event that Acura has never won [in post-merger era]. I think it\u2019s very important to point it out, so we\u2019re trying to make it happen this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s one of those events last year we tried hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got tapped a little bit on the left rear by one of the Porsches, and it broke something off the rear tail, which is why we had to pit, and otherwise, I think we would have been on the podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never seemed to be happening before, so I think when it happens this year, it\u2019s going to be huge and that\u2019s what we\u2019re aiming for.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be the event to shine. Last year we won in Detroit, which is a street track; the car hopefully performs as good as it did in Detroit.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019re coming off two races\u2026 The biggest one to win are Daytona and Sebring, and we didn\u2019t have a shot at winning that one, those two.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for Acura, if we could win the Long Beach Grand Prix would be the one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Known as one of the street circuit experts in the WeatherTech Championship, van der Zande said you have to be \u201ccomfortable\u201d with the getting close to the walls in order to extract the maximum out of the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a combination for sure,\u201d he said. \u201cI think if you don\u2019t have a fast car or if you don\u2019t have a compliant car, you, you\u2019re not able to push.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes a driver good at the race track, like street tracks of Long Beach, or Detroit, or Monaco, or Macau, is how close do you like to drift towards the wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re not sliding a little bit with a race car, you\u2019re not fast enough, but if you\u2019re sliding too much, you\u2019re in the wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow close are you, are you comfortable in getting towards the wall and getting close to the wall?<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you don\u2019t have a car that is really bad over the bumps, then forget about it. You\u2019re not going to go and slide around and be aggressive on the driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a combination of the two and but at the same time, I think it\u2019s more something that on the street track as a driver, it\u2019s something that you are comfortable with.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re not comfortable with the walls, then you\u2019re going to be slow, and then it\u2019s more a matter of not being good at\u2026 a street track.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old has likened the 1.968-mile street circuit to the Guia Circuit in Macau, home of the FIA GT World Cup, as well as the N\u00fcrburgring Nordschleife.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill one of my favorite racetracks is Macau, which is one of the craziest racetracks around the world,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd in a way, the Nordschleife is a little bit the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those where if you make a small mistake or if you misjudge it a little bit, the consequences are huge in terms of damage, in terms of how much you\u2019re out of the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery little mistake is a DQ. So, it\u2019s fun, but dangerous at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John<\/a><\/p>\n

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