Gary Nelson, Cadillac, Out to Overcome Acura's IMSA Balance of Performance Boost at Long Beach

Thirty years ago, Gary Nelson was still celebrating his win of the 1992 Daytona 500 as driver Bobby Allison’s crew chief.

Saturday night, he hopes to be celebrating his second straight win of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach as the team manager for the Action Express No. 31 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Cadillac Daytona Prototype international car.

The 2021 race win, which didn’t take place until September 25 due to COVID concerns, was with Whelen Engineering drivers Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr. This year, Derani is back but Tristan Vautier has replaced Nasr, who moved over to Porsche to help develop the new-for-2023 GTP car that will replace the DPi beginning with the next Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The team also won the 2021 overall championship, with additional wins at Road America and Watkins Glen.

As for Nelson: He just wants more first-place trophies. So far this season, there haven’t been any for either Action Express cars—the No. 31, and the No. 48 Ally car, which is only running the longer endurance races, meaning Daytona and Sebring and the upcoming Watkins Glen and Petit Le Mans.

“We’ve had better starts to the season,” Nelson told Autoweek, “and we’ve had worse starts, and both those times we won the championship. So I think we’re doing just fine.” The No. 31 finished fourth and the No. 48 finished 11th at Daytona, and at Sebring, the No. 31 was third, and the No. 48 was sixth.