Long Beach, CA

  • #60 duo of Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun lead Acura effort with P9 finish
  • Sister #93 Acura ARX-06 suffers damage in hairpin contact

It was a difficult day for Acura in the 100-minute sprint race event at the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

After starting fifth and sixth, both Acura ARX-06 machines fielded by Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian faced adversity in the shortest race of the 2025 IMSA season.

Though the #93 Acura of Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly made up a spot on the start, their ARX-06 was clipped by the #6 machine in the hairpin early on in the race, garnering a 'stop and repair' requirement from IMSA and forcing an extra pit stop on the team. The #93 would cross the line 11th after 100-minutes of racing.

Meanwhile, the sister #60 car took a gamble on strategy, opting for an extra pit stop to fuel up the Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist-driven ARX-06 in the hopes that the cars ahead would have to dive down pit lane for service at the end of the race. However, the additional pit stop was not needed by the leaders and the #60 team would end up P9 at the line.

Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach Acura Results

  • Finished 9th - #60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06. Tom Blomqvist Colin Braun.
  • Finished 11th - #93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06. Nick Yelloly, Renger van der Zande.

Quotes
Tom Blomqvist (#60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06) Finished 9th: "We didn't really have the pace and we got unlucky. It's always difficult when you have two cars and have to manage things in the pits. We were behind on track so, we had to sacrifice a little bit by having to pit second on the first round of pit stops. And then unfortunately the other car wasn't able to capitalize because they had a problem later. It put both of us out of contention. It's a huge shame because it's such a short race and there's really not much you can do to catch up"

Colin Braun (#60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06) Finished 9th: "Bit of a disappointing day for us. We had high hopes with the 50th anniversary of the Acura Grand Prix in the wonderful Acura GTP cars. The guys had good stops. Unfortunately, for most of my stint I was stuck behind the Aston [Martin] - which has a lot of straight-line speed, and it's pretty hard to pass at a track like this. I was hoping for some more things to come our way strategy-wise but unfortunately the race just kind of played out where it didn't help or hurt it, it just kind of neutralized everything. I think we did the most that we could with what we had. We'll look at all the data and come back swinging in Laguna."

Nick Yelloly (#93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06) Finished 11th: "Not where we wanted to end up finishing. After a promising start, unfortunately we got tapped by a competitor going into the last corner and that forced us to pit a second time to change the body work and we lost our lap. But, great effort from the boys and girls within Acura and Meyer Shank and we'll move on to Laguna in a few weeks."

Renger van der Zande (#93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06) Finished 11th: "Very disappointing. Being second at the restart and then IMSA called us in to change the tail, I think I would have liked them to give that message before the pit stops so that we would have had a chance to stay in the race. At that point we were completely out of the race. I wish we would have restarted P2 and could have kept everyone behind us to end up on the podium. Right now the speed difference is a bit too big and hopefully that will change in the future. We will look how we can improve moving forward."

David Salters (President, Honda Racing Corporation USA): "Tricky day. My compliments to our drivers and our teams. We made up positions at the start and we had great pit stops. But, due to a penalty because of damage inflicted by another car, that was the end of our day on the #93. The #60 was on an alternative strategy that unfortunately didn't quite work out. All of our men and women are working really, really hard. It just wasn't to be today. Time to regroup and focus forward." 

Next
The 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns to the west coast for the Monterey SportsCar Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

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