Long Beach, Calif. (25 September 2021) – Racing on the streets of Long Beach for the first time in IMSA WeatherTech DPi competition, Meyer Shank Racing battled through a challenging weekend in the No. 60 AutoNation / SiriusXM Acura ARX-05 to finish sixth in class on Sunday.
Dane Cameron and Olivier Pla paired looking to conquer the shortest race – 100 minutes – of the IMSA season. Starting from the second row, Cameron kept the fenders clean as an aggressive start got underway.
A race that typically produces several yellow flags, only saw one caution period on Lap 10. For the remaining 63 laps it was flat out racing to the finish.
Following a Lap 20 pit stop, Cameron returned on track and brought the No. 60 Acura up to the lead on Lap 41. The California-native handed the Acura off to Pla during a Lap 44 driver exchange. The final 36 laps saw Pla hold a constant and strong pace, closing the gap to the top five.
With just eight minutes left on the clock, Pla found himself on the outside of a three wide battle with GT traffic. The close quarters proved to be just too tight as Pla spun around amd made contact with the wall after the encounter.
Pla was able to drive the No. 60 back to pit lane, but the damage was too severe to fix and the team’s race ended early.
“The Meyer Shank Racing guys put in a ton of effort this weekend and we had a pretty fast car today,” said Cameron. “But our day unfortunately ended early, so we’ll just focus on a strong close to the year at Road Atlanta. The team has had a lot of success there so hopefully we can add to that in November.”
“I was working through the GT traffic and it happened really quickly, I haven’t seen a replay yet but I am just sorry for the team because we had a lot of obstacles this weekend and they just kept fighting back. So it is disappointing to end early but we will have to look forward to Road Atlanta,” said Pla, who won the 2016 edition of the race with Meyer Shank Racing.
Media Contact: Maddie Komar
maddie@sundaymanagement.com