LONG BEACH – Elias Sabo, a veteran driver in the SRO GT America series, will be making his Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach debut this weekend. Instead of focusing on the one series, Sabo and his Flying Lizard Motorsports team are adding the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race to their schedule, too.
It wasn’t enough for Sabo, who lives in Newport Beach, to ease into Long Beach with his team’s Aston Martin GT4 entry in the GT America series race. That is challenging enough for any driver. But he is on a steep learning curve by adding the IMSA race in an Aston Martin GT3 car. Learning a new course in a new car and giving his more familiar entry the attention it needs too is going to make it a busy weekend for Sabo.
But he is looking forward to it.
“It’ll be a little bit of a challenge because on the Saturday and Sunday races, I’ll be driving a GT4 Aston Martin,” Sabo said. “That’s what I’ve driven over the last two years in SRO. We are also doing the IMSA race on Saturday. In that race we are going to be driving an Aston Martin GT3 class car.”
He will be joining teammate Andy Lee in the IMSA and GT America races. The class of cars in the IMSA race are noticeably faster and more technologically advanced. Sabo said the differences in the GT3 and GT4 cars take some time to adjust to, but he is confident he will learn quickly how to navigate each of them through the Long Beach street course.
“Andy’s done a lot to be able to prepare me and get me up to speed. We watch an enormous amount of video and look at a lot of data from years before,” Sabo said. “When I get out there on the track, it sounds crazy, but it feels like I’ve been here before.”
Elias Sabo is pictured in recent competition. Sabo will compete in two races this week at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. (Photo courtesy of Flying Lizard Motorsports)
The first two rounds of the SRO Fantatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS were at Sonoma Raceway, where Sabo and Lee finished ninth in the first race and sixth in the second in the Pro-Am class on April 7. The third and fourth rounds of the series will be in Long Beach.
Sabo and Lee are entered in the GTD class and will drive the No. 28 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 sponsored by 5.11 Tactical, an outdoor clothing, footwear and uniform apparel company based in Irvine, in the IMSA race. The Flying Lizard Motorsports team made the announcement about entering the IMSA race on April 9 in Long Beach.
“GT3 is a significantly faster car. It’s got much more capabilities,” Sabo said. “We just love the Aston platform. We’ve been driving it since the beginning of the 2022 season. We’re really comfortable in that platform. It’s treated us really well.”
Sabo said racing in Long Beach is a bucket list accomplishment. When the race was put on the SRO GT America schedule, he knew it was one he didn’t want to miss. Lee shares Sabo’s excitement about racing in Long Beach.
“From the moment I started working with Elias, Long Beach was always a huge goal for us,” Lee said. “It’s basically Elias’ hometown race since it’s so close to his business and family. We came close to competing in 2020 in the GT4 division before the event was canceled during the pandemic. I can’t tell you how excited we are for the opportunity to compete this year and to do so in the IMSA WeatherTech GTD class is extra special.”
To prepare for the races in Long Beach, Sabo has been practicing on simulators. But he said, while it was helpful, it was much different than racing on the real course.
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“There are certain fundamentals of driving a race car that you get, whether if it’s on a road course or whether it’s a street course,” Sabo said. “I’ve raced in Nashville in the first ever Music City Grand Prix. I have some street racing experience. And we get a day of practice. I will be on my simulators a lot beforehand. The simulator looks surprisingly accurate on iRacing compared to what we have here. Obviously, you can’t simulate the fear factor and the walls that come up on you as quickly as they do, but we’ll be pretty good. We’ll get out there on the first day, get a feel for the car, get it set up.”
As for expectations, Sabo said he has modest ones. It’s his first time racing on the street circuit in Long Beach. He said he wants to have fun in the races, but more importantly, he wants to keep the cars intact for the next race and for the rest of the season.
“We always have modest expectations, but I say that, and the goal is to come and win, and get on the podium,” Sabo said. “I don’t know where my peers will be, some people who have been here before. I feel really good that I’ll be able to get up to speed quickly.”
