Time Attack at the Long Beach Grand Prix
It wasn’t the driving that made Long Beach Grand Prix so special, it was our efforts off the track. Thanks to our family, friends, sponsors and the Global Time Attack community for making this dream a reality.
They're revved up and running at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach
"This is the streets of downtown Long Beach. The street circuit itself is is unreal, the features where you're going around the fountain, and you're blowing underneath parking structures." - Cole Powelson
Well engines will be roaring through long beach this weekend the Acura Grand Prix is back after it was put on hold last year due to the pandemic.
"It was super intimidating, we're racing the streets with barriers and fencing" - Mark Hermansen
For anyone who hasn't come out and taken part in this before, this is a track that winds right through Long Beach "What it means for Time Attack to go to Long Beach is, it's real amateurs being able to compete on the same weekend as the top professional motorsport in North America, it's IndyCar. It's unheard of, what other form of racing can you build a car in your house and go race the same weekend as IndyCar, let alone a street circuit!"
- Cole Powelson
"Our pits were super awesome, we were actually in the convention center which was pretty cool. We had great spot right there by the door so we were the first people that got in and out onto track"
- Mark Hermansen
"So I was invited by Global Time Attack and the Long Beach Grand Prix to visit some schools ahead of the event, and talk to kids about being a race car driver. I was there to share my experience and my story to get these kids stoked about the races in their hometown."
- Cole Powelson
"Hi guys I'm Cole Powelson I'm 35 years old, I'm from Salt Lake City, Utah and this weekend I'll be racing a Nissan GT-R" - Cole Powelson
"Hi guys I'm Cole Powelson I'm 35 years old, I'm from Salt Lake City, Utah and this weekend I'll be racing a Nissan GT-R" - Cole Powelson
"The first school I walked up to was the largest attended school. I thought we were doing classes with maybe 100 kids. A few classes, a single grade or something like that, no.. we rolled into the first school and there's 620 kids and I was like.. alright it's showtime!" - Cole Powelson
"We wear full fireproof gear, we've got a fireproof helmet, a headsock, socks and we even wear fireproof underwear" - Cole Powelson
"Do you wear fireproof underwear?" - Announcer
"I do." - Karla Pestotnik
"On day two Karla joined me and it was fantastic having her there as well, it was great to have a woman in motorsports being represented especially for the Time Attack side of things, she's got a great story" - Cole Powelson
"It was really cool to engage with all these kids, it was the coolest thing I've done in racing that wasn't driving a race car"
- Cole Powelson
"Friday was the first practice, we go out there. "Come on!" Immediately pull into the pits, transmission issues.. I blame Kyle, he drove it to the car show the night before and he messed with my switches, so it's totally Kyle's fault. So I pull out cars not right, immediately into the pits" - Cole Powelson
"We only get a couple laps." -Powelson
"I can't get the transmission into R mode it's not happy!"
"We were off to a rough start at that point. I come in cycle the key run
through some stuff. Boom, solved hit the track!" -Powelson
"At this point i'm a lap plus down and now I'm in the middle of lap traffic.
"I'm trying to learn the track as quick as possible, I'm putting down laps, weaving through lap traffic..." -Powelson
BOOM!
"Owie why does my ankle hurt, that's a weird noise and i'm looking in there and the wastegates are glowing bright red like liquid molten lava red." -Powelson
"And the a flash of fire comes out from the trans tunnel." -Powelson
What the hell just happened? lt happened just like that! I was scared, I was about to pull the fire system. This is awful, all these things are happening and I didn't even get a second lap." -Powelson
"We get the car back to the pits, I hate coming back on a hook" -Powelson
"It was the worst first best lap ever!"-Powelson
"I thought at that point our weekend may have been over. My initial thought was hey! this damaged engine that you rolled down here with Is now gone." -Powelson
"Yet another drive shaft failure but this time it wasn't the drive shaft that failed, we moved the wastegates from the drive shaft, up to the bell housing and melted the bell housing bearing, causing massive failure on that bearing. So the bearing started beating around and then tweaked the shaft and the shaft whipped around smashed through the trans tunnel and hit my ankle" -Powelson
"Now instead of melting drive shafts in a safe point, we're melting bell housings and the bearing associated with that because it's not far enough out of the way. Not enough heat shielding. -Powelson
"How did that do that! Did that break and then that caused the u-joint to fail and
explode the whole thing?!" -Hermansen
"This is way worse than any other break we've had thus far." -Hermansen
"Here we are once again, broken car, the potential is there, and we had decisions to be made" - Powelson
"I thought we were out because how bad it was, but Nate was like: There's no
way we can pull the bell housing without taking the motor out, we can do it from
the bottom, so let's go for it! I was like.. Nate it's your call if you think we could do it let's do it!" -Hermansen
There was a number of different issues that were working against us at this point so Mark, Nate & Mike got together start making the list, If we're going to proceed these are all the things that we need."-Powelson
"The parts that broke was the bearing in the bell housing which exploded. The prop shaft blew again, and Kyle took off he started sourcing parts. He drove around until nine o'clock at night just trying to find these different pieces and parts that we needed. So we started putting it all together and it was quite a thrashing and me and Nate were nuts to butts pretty much the whole time." -Hermansen
"The team worked into the night covered in fiberglass from the heat wrap that was disintegrated from catching on fire, it was a strong team effort that night. -Powelson
"We're there until three in the morning, we were the only people in the whole convention center, the security guards were nice enough to leave the
lights on for us. The team did a knockout job of getting everything together to give us a shot the next day. "-Powelson
"We want to be in the hunt, we worked hard to be in the hunt." -Powelson
The decision was made that we could do no more than one flying lap at a time without risking the same failure. We came out of the gate and put down a lap" -Powelson
"F*ck yeah! 1:22 baby!" -Nate Omana
"No way!" - Powelson
"You're like a hundredth off of Ferris" -Nate Omana
He went quicker"-Powelson
"Like a hundredth faster than him." -Omana
"Damn okay" -Powelson
Standings:
#72 Feras Qartoumy 1:22.000
#32 Cole Powelson 1:22.395
#228 JC Meynet 1:28.432
"It was competitive, where Ferris had ended up, we knew he didn't have ideal lap conditions and had more in it, and so did we! That was really the second flying lap that we had." -Powelson
"Do you want to take rear wing out" -Omana
"No, I like the car I don't want to change anything." -Powelson
"Who wants to go to the beach?!" -Powelson
"That's where we parked it for the day, I think we're three or four tenths off the
fast lap at that point and i'm just super proud of our team"-Powelson
"CBS 2's Cara Finstrom is live in Long Beach with what spectators need to know"
I'm so jealous it's so fun to be out in Long Beach, This is one of the best weekends out there!" -CBS 2
"It's race day, we get the car all ready, torque the wheels, stage the cargo to fire it up..." -Hermansen
"Bro! I don't even want to talk about that! " -Powelson
Super secret shh, don't tell anyone because we almost didn't even go out on Sunday because the car wouldn't start!" -Powelson
"We sat there, cycled it, did whatever we could. Mike's plugging into the computer trying to figure out what's up, it's throwing codes, it just won't even
start." -Hermansen
"We're literally staged to roll out on the circuit, I see the guys messing with the car, I see that look in their eye the panic, things are not going as planned." -Powelson
"We were right there at the last second, like about ready to push the car out of
the way because we weren't even gonna be able to race on Sunday." -Hermansen
"I'm sitting there just hoping things get sorted out i don't know the severity of it
but it was like Nate's standing on the intake manifold." -Powelson
"We're grabbing wires, we're wiggling things. It didn't make sense and then Nate was telling me "just cycle the key, cycle the key" I did it probably 15
times and then finally it started." -Hermansen
"Mike looked at me, he goes: "Don't turn it off whatever you do, do not turn this
thing off it probably won't re-fire." -Powelson
"That was crazy! One of the LTC's stopped working, the oil pressure sensor stopped working, campbell's communication between the engine computer and the training computer stopped working. We tried a bunch of stuff none of it helped and then we turned the car off for like the 15th time and turned it back on and it just started and everything was fine!" -Mike McGinnis
"Our car was staged in the convention center and the hot pits were way down like.. I mean it felt like forever but i'm running through the whole convention center. I had some lady say: "Hey honey you need to speed up they're leaving you" and I felt like such a schmuck but I couldn't do anything my arm was really going to fall off if I try to go any faster" - Hermansen
"I absolutely loved it! Racing between the walls just knowing there's really really thin margins of error, but being able to go ten tenths, you know it's like to charge as hard as you want between these two narrow walls. It was unreal!" -Powelson
"We went out, we put a time down, we definitely improved on our time but you know there was more in it. So we came in the pits we cooled the car down and I tried to go back out in the second running group, they said no, you don't get to run two run groups. Even though it was the same session they didn't want to mix up that many cars on the track" -Powelson
Standings:
#72 Feras Qartoumy 1:19.571
#23 Cole Powelson 1:21.017
#39 Cable Rosenberg 1:25.051
"P2 at Long Beach! Feras got it, We went quicker, there's more in it but second place at Long Beach is still all right!" - Powelson
It was definitely a fun battle, it was cool to get back in the hunt. I'm super proud of our team for overcoming all the adversity" -Powelson
"I did all the cool big boy race car stuff, went to the the press box after and interviewed there and did the whole deal. It was a top-level world-class experience that we got to be a part of as just time attack guys" - Powelson
"Just to be around all the other people. It was an invite only for Global Time Attack, we were one of 20 they picked, So we had to do a good showing. We had to make it happen with what we had, and I think it turned out pretty okay" -Hermansen
"The Time Attack guys showed really well and we're within striking distance of the fastest GT cars in the world, with the best drivers in the world, on a circuit that they've got hundreds of laps around, and we're doing 10 minute sessions." -Powelson
"I think for time attack we're just getting started, I know in Australia, those cars are even more advanced than anything that we have in the U.S. and as it continues to light off globally from Europe to Australia to North America and Japan. There is some very very fast cars and I think we're just starting to scratch the surface, there's a lot more speed to be seen" -Cole Powelson
"What goes through your mind when you lose a race?" - School Announcer
"I've gotta work harder, I've gotta go train, I've gotta be better prepared, I have to build a better car it just means that I've gotta work harder to beat my competition" -Powelson
