Gabby Chaves took advantage at start of the Long Beach 100 and went on to win the second race of the Indy Lights Series presented by Cooper Tires. The Colombian led all 45 laps en route to the win.
At the beginning, Chaves, pole winner Zach Veach and Matthew Brabham raced three-wide going into turn one with Chaves prevailing, and the three front-runners raced and finished in the same order.
Two weeks ago at St. Petersburg¸ Veach passed Chaves in the first corner, and the outcome was reversed today.
“This is great and I did get a bump (Alex Baron) at the beginning and that helped,” Chaves said. “This is my favorite street course, and I am happy to get the win. We had struggle with consistency but we got it back today.”
One of Brabham’s early laps saw him make slight contact with the wall exiting Turn 8, and he white-walled his left rear Cooper tire. But it didn’t affect him and he was able to press on.
Veach, meanwhile, was more than 2 seconds back from Chaves but methodically clawed his way back, tenth by tenth, over the course of the 45-lap race. He got to within 0.9418 of a second by the Lap 23 halfway mark, and despite getting within a half a second the rest of the way, he was unable to pass the Belardi Auto Racing driver.
Behind the podium, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports entries came home in fourth and fifth, with Jack Harvey ending ahead of Luiz Razia.
Unofficial points sees Veach on 93, Chaves on 92. The series heads to Barber Motorsports Park in two weeks for the next round of the championship.
The race was caution free.
Average speed for the 57-minute race was 92.885 miles per hour.
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