Inside Line: Most Memorable Grand Prix of Long Beach?

Fox Sports

09-04-2025

INDYCAR
Today's question: What was your most memorable edition of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, which celebrates its 50th edition April 11-13?
Curt Cavin: I've covered close to 500 series races since the late 1980s, and I'm hard-pressed to remember many outside of Indy that were more memorable than Ryan Hunter-Reay's 2010 victory at Long Beach. Time has a way of making us forget where Hunter-Reay was at that point in his career. He didn't have an INDYCAR SERIES ride in 2006 or for most of 2007, and he drove for three different series teams over the next two-plus seasons. He had joined Andretti Autosport for the start of the 2010 season, but it was billed as sponsor-dependent, and IZOD was new to the sport. But Hunter-Reay won Long Beach to really revive his career. For 12 years he was a foundational piece of the organization, winning 15 races, including the 2014 Indianapolis 500, and becoming a series champion (2012). That Long Beach victory also came at an emotional point in his personal life as he had lost his mother, Lydia, to colon cancer only five months prior.
Eric Smith: Similar to Curt, I'm going to go with a jolt of energy for a winner, and that race happens to be three years later, in 2013. Takuma Sato joined the list of prestigious winners, leading 50 of 80 laps to score his first INDYCAR SERIES victory. That was AJ Foyt Racing's first victory since 2002 and catapulted both driver and team to relevance.
Paul Kelly: I'll go with the 2008 edition of the race. It was far from a classic, as Will Power led 81 of 83 laps. But it was perhaps the most surreal of the 50 Grands Prix of Long Beach. Champ Car and the Indy Racing League had agreed earlier that year to merge, ending 12 years of a split sport, with Long Beach as the final Champ Car race. INDYCAR already had scheduled a race for that weekend in Motegi, Japan, so staff was split between the two events. I worked the Champ Car race in Long Beach, which definitely had an 'end of the school year' feel about it. During that weekend, Danica Patrick made history at Motegi by becoming the only woman to win an INDYCAR SERIES race. I vividly remember her being whisked across the Pacific to Long Beach from Japan to meet the media on Long Beach race day and talk about her historic Motegi victory, which frankly attracted way more attention than what was happening that day on the streets of Long Beach even though that race marked the official end of 'The Split.' I also remember seeing Power dominate under the Southern California sunshine that day in a race with no cautions and every car running at the finish and thinking, 'That guy is pretty good; some IRL team is bound to pick him up, right?' That team was Team Penske, and the rest, as they say, is history …
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