Johnny O’Connell is no stranger to winning GT races. The veteran racer has four class wins at Le Mans aboard Grand Touring cars, including three for the might Corvette Racing team in his decade-long tenure with the Pratt & Miller-run squad. He hung up his yellow-and-black overalls at age 48 and traded his C6-R Corvette for a Cadillac CTS-V (and later GT3-spec ATS-V, both prepared by Pratt & Miller) in Pirelli World Challenge in 2011. In the time since, O’Connell has won the last four GT-class championships. It’s no surprise then to find him in the middle of the scrum in the World Challenge race at this year’s Long Beach Grand Prix.
Starting from the outside of the front row, O’Connell loses out at the start into the first turn, but like a pro, he fights back. Long Beach is notoriously narrow and difficult for passing, but don’t tell that to O’Connell. He makes the most of his opportunities and runs away with the win. Unfortunately, post-race tech inspection turned up a few boost spikes in the ATS-V’s twin-turbo V6, giving him a 10-second time penalty that forfeited the win to Alvaro Parente, whose McLaren is the final obstacle to the win in the video. Regardless, it’s a characteristically clinical piece of driving from one of the world’s best.
Those big Caddies are badass. I go to the LBGP every year they are my favorite racecar of the weekend. My only complaint is the sound a little wimpy with the Turbo V6 as opposed to the V8 they ran prior to 2015