Events Hype

2009 Toyota Grand Prix Of Long Beach: Day 1

April 17, 2009November 11, 2020 Andrew Beckford 0 Comments 2009 long beach grand prix, American LeMans Series, bobby rahal, E93 BMW M3, Events, falken tire, Helio Castroneves, Hype, indanapolis 500, Indy 500, Indy Car, Indy Car Series, keanu reeves, Porsche, Scion, Toyota, toyota celebrity race, twitter

So the first day is wrapped up and I’m already tired! It was pretty eventful with Indy Car practice and qualifiying for two different events (ALMS and Pro Celebrity). I tried my best to keep up with Indy Practice via the MotorworldHype twitter page but my phone got a little dicy. I should do better tomorrow.

One of the biggest news bits today was that Helio Castroneves was aquitted on almost all counts of tax evasion and will be returning to Team Penske and jumping in the #3 car this weekend. Will Power will be joining him in the #12 Verizon Wireless sponsored Penske car while Ryan Briscoe will remain in the #6. So now the Indy Grid has to worry about a Penske tripple threat.

In some other Indy news it was announced that Paul Tracy would join the KV Racing team for the Indy 500 with backing from Geico insurance.

Also on the menu today was Toyota Celebrity (AKA demolition derby) qualifying. Its so fun to watch these people pinball around the track! Some of them did pretty well though all things considered. Heck, Farnsworth Bentley qualified 3rd among the celebs despite bouncing off concrete and tires earlier in the day. Pro-skater Danny Way qualified first with Keanu “Neo” Reeves qualifying second. Make sure to stay tuned to the MotorworldHype twitter page tomorrow at 11:40am california time as I’ll be tweeting the race live.

On the American LeMans (ALMS) tip the P2 Mazda Lola coupe was only a few tenths off from the Fernandez racing Acura. It looks like its going to be a tight race between the only two Japanese manufacturers in the Series. The Rahal BMW M3s qualified 4th and 5th respectively in the GT2 class while Falken Tire’s Porsche 911 RSR qualified 8th in GT2 just ahead of Boris Said in the Riley Corvette.

Tomorrow is race day for ALMS and I might be in Mazda’s pit box tweeting the race live. I’ll give you guys a heads up on that tomorrow.

For now check out some of my day 1 pictures. There will be much more tomorrow!