Robby Gordon becomes SST Long Beach all-time winner with Race 2 triumph

Robby Gordon is now the Stadium Super Trucks‘ all-time wins leader at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The two-time champion took the lead early in Race #2 on Sunday and did not let go en route to his third win of 2021 and fourth at Long Beach, breaking a tie with Matt Brabham.

An inversion of Race #1’s finishing order placed Mads Siljehaug on the pole and winner Jerett Brooks at the rear. After retiring from the first race with a mechanical issue, Jacob Abel did not start the second.

Siljehaug led a triumvirate of Crosley Brands trucks as Brandon Parrish and Bo LeMastus followed. The trio occupied the top three for the opening lap while Gordon worked through the field. Zoey Edenholm, who started third, ended up in the tyre barrier after the brake line wrapped around her truck’s suspension.

Mechanical issues with Siljehaug as he approached the start/finish line to start lap three allowed Parrish to take the lead. On lap four, Crosley driver Jeff Ward spun in turn one after contact with LeMastus. Gordon chased down Parrish and cleared him shortly before the competition caution later on the lap.

A strong restart by Brooks gave him the advantage over Parrish, who eventually lost spots to Brabham and Robert Stout. By the second competition yellow on lap seven, the top four had isolated themselves from the field while Parrish battled with Christian Sourapas and Max Gordon for fifth.

The top five took off at the green flag as Brabham and Stout initiated a duel for third, which the latter won. The two continued their fight before it ended with Stout’s day literally being turned upside-down on the penultimate lap: entering turn one, the two made contact that sent Stout sideways into the wall; after bouncing off the barrier, his truck flipped onto its driver-side door. LeMastus and Hynes also spun a few metres away from the crash site. Stout walked away uninjured.

With little time remaining and for safety reasons, the race was cut short by a lap and ended under caution. The victory is the twenty-eighth of Gordon’s career and twelfth on a street circuit (second of 2021 after Nashville Race #1).

Brooks settled for second which gave him the weekend victory, while Brabham placed third. It is Brooks’ seventh career podium, third of the year (he also placed second in Race #1 of Mid-Ohio’s IndyCar weekend), and fourth on a street course (he notched two podiums at St. Petersburg in 2014). Points leader Brabham remains the only driver to have podium finishes in every race in 2021.

Unofficial results