This weekend is the Grand Prix of Long Beach, and in addition to the American Le Mans race and round three of the 2013 IndyCar Series, the cars of the Pirelli World Challenge will be hitting the 11-turn, 1.9 mile circuit for a 50-minute sprint.
Last week, I was down there for a media ride along—read about that on our sister site 6Speed—and while I was hanging around, I got to check out driver Andy Lee’s GTS Camaro. Lee is an instructor for Bondurant, and his ride is actually a former school car that’s been prepped for race duty. I didn’t get to talk much to Andy, but I did get a few minutes with BestIT team owner—and driver of the the number 29 Camaro—Harry Curtain.
Phoenix-based Curtain began his professional racing career in the legendary Baja 1000, and sees the Pirelli World Challenge like a 21st century Trans Am. It was fun to hear him talk about how the team he started from scratch in 2012 with “no time off and no development” finished second in GTS that year. He laughed as he said, “we went from trying not to crash to pushing for the driver’s championship.”
That’s no small feat, and I’ll be pulling for BestIT when the checkered flag drops on Sunday. You can watch a video of the number 20 car on the dyno—it sounds awesome—and check out some of my pics of this bad-ass Bowtie below. We’ll also be posting a live stream of the PWC so you can catch all the action even if you can’t make it to Long Beach. Stay tuned!
John Coyle's first memories are of identifying makes and models while driving with his dad. His favorite vehicles smell like gasoline, shoot fire, and sound like buildings falling down. Before he began his career in the automotive field, he daily drove a 1978 Jaguar XJ6 with a fully functional electrical system. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
