TOP 1 BAR1 Motorsports at Long Beach

TOP 1 BAR1 Motorsports at Long Beach

“We anticipated a street fight,” said Brian Alder following the IMSA WeatherTech Series Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach, “and we got one. When you race on a street circuit at this level of competition, bringing the car home with four wheels and the body work intact can easily leave you with a feeling of victory. Our guys did well.”

Johnny Mowlem and Tomy Drissi were tasked with the duty of driving the No. 20 X-Men: Apocalypse-sponsored, Chevrolet-powered ORECA FLM09,  going head-to-head with longest running street course in North America. On this track, while you are racing with 30 competitors, the collective enemy is the track. 

Tomy Drissi qualified the car and drove the first stint of the 100 minute event. Tomy ran into trouble in the tricky, so-called concrete canyons of California before turning the car over to Johnny Mowlem.

“It was a very hard race even though shorter than our normal races,” added Mowlem. “It seemed to go on forever as our car was suffering from a broken splitter. From the very beginning was incredibly hard to drive,” 

“Tomy did a super job,” noted Johnny Mowlem.  When I got in after 50 minutes I pushed as hard as I dared, given how close the walls are at Long Beach. We ended up with a solid fourth in class, which is the best we could have hoped for given the circumstances.”

“What a tough race,” added Tomy Drissi. “Johnny and I both gave it everything we had. The team worked hard to give us a good car, but the set up on a street course is very difficult to nail. If you miss it, it can be very hard to have a car that you can attack with. We had a good car but it just wasn't a winning car. The competition was strong and they just got it a little better than we did.”
 
“Driving with Johnny was great,” said Tomy. “We went there to win and it didn't happen."  scored points.

This year’s race ended a two year absence of the Prototype Challenge class on the streets of Long Beach. The previous schedules of IMSA / TUDOR in 2014 and 2015, saw only the Prototype and GT Lemans cars racing on the city’s streets.