The Grand Prix of Long Beach is an IndyCar Series race held on the Long Beach Street Circuit in Long Beach, California. It is typically held in April and is the second-oldest continuously running event in American open-wheel racing behind only the Indianapolis 500. The event was founded by promoter Christopher Pook, who was inspired by the Monaco Grand Prix.
The race began in 1975 as a Formula 5000 race. Brian Redman won the inaugural Long Beach Grand Prix in 1975. It became a Formula One event, known as the United States Grand Prix West, in 1976. Mario Andretti won the inaugural Formula One race in 1976. The race was moved to March or April during its Formula One tenure. Despite strong attendance, the event was not financially successful as a Formula One event, leading Pook to change it to a CART Indy car event starting in 1984. The event served as a CART/Champ Car World Series race from 1984 to 2008, and has been part of the unified IndyCar Series since 2009. The 2008 race was the final Champ Car World Series race prior to the unification of Champ Car World Series and the Indy Racing League.
Al Unser Jr. holds the record for the most wins at Long Beach with six. Scott Dixon, Will Power, and Alexander Rossi also have multiple victories. Drivers who won their first career Indycar race at Long Beach include Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy, Juan Pablo Montoya, Mike Conway, Takuma Sato, and Kyle Kirkwood. Michael Andretti's first career Indycar win (1986) and 42nd and final career Indycar win (2002) both occurred at Long Beach.
Support races over the years have included Indy Lights, IMSA SportsCar Championship, Atlantics, Pirelli World Challenge, Trans-Am Series, Formula D, Stadium Super Trucks, Formula E, and the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race. Toyota was a sponsor of the event from 1980 to 2018. The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is the current name of the event since 2019 due to naming rights.
During the same weekend as the Grand Prix, the schedule also includes an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race, a Super Drift Challenge featuring drivers from the Formula Drift series, SPEED Energy Stadium SUPER Trucks, Porsche Carrera Cup, and the Historic Sports Car Challenge. The Super Drift Challenge is the only event during the Grand Prix that runs at night under floodlights.
Sports car racing has been a significant part of the Long Beach Grand Prix history, dating back to 1990 with IMSA's sedan-based GTO and GTU classes. The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the IndyCar Series currently share top billing. The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race is a 100-minute sprint for the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) classes.
The Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame is located on South Pine Avenue, in front of the Long Beach Convention Center and adjacent to the Long Beach Grand Prix circuit. It was created in 2006 to honor key contributors to motorsports and annually inducts new members in conjunction with the Long Beach Grand Prix. A 22-inch (560 mm) bronze medallion is placed in the sidewalk for each inductee, which includes a rendition of the racer's car and lists their top achievements in motor sport.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
Gallery · 4 related images
