Gearing Up: Big Week Ahead at Long Beach
It's a certified big week for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES when walk of fame inductions are part of the festivities.
The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will be held for the 50th time this weekend, highlighted by the third race of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES season on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
Next to the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, Long Beach is the longest continuously held event on the calendar. Since 1984, races have been staged with much of the glitz that comes with being located just down the road from Hollywood. The only break in the event's history was in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic prevented large urban gatherings such as this one from being held.
Long Beach is one of Southern California's premier sports spectacles and North America's most famous street race. Last year, officials announce a record attendance of 194,000 for the three days of on-track action.
Some of the biggest names in the sport's history have won on what is now an 11-turn, 1.964-mile street circuit. Mario Andretti won three of the first four races, including the first two, while his son, Michael, won twice as a driver and six times as a team owner. Al Unser Jr. holds the record for most INDYCAR SERIES wins by a driver with six.
Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have seven Long Beach wins each, including two of the past three. Last year, CGR's Scott Dixon won for the second time in the most dramatic of fashions, holding off Andretti Autosport's Colton Herta, Team Penske's Josef Newgarden and teammate Alex Palou in a late-race dogfight.
This week, Dixon will be inducted in the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame as a two-time winner of the event. He also won in 2015.
Other Walk of Fame inductees this week include Jim Michaelian, the longtime president and CEO of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach, and three-term Long Beach Mayor Beverly O'Neill, who never missed a grand prix in her 12 years in office.
Long Beach was the site of Kyle Kirkwood's first NTT INDYCAR SERIES race win in 2023, and he will arrive in Southern California solidly in championship contention in sixth place. Newgarden won this event in 2022.
Herta, Ed Carpenter Racing's Alexander Rossi (twice) and Team Penske's Will Power (twice) are former Long Beach winners competing in this field.
While Long Beach always offers significant star power, the brightest star in this series is currently Palou. He has won the first two races of the season and will look to become the first driver since Dixon in 2020 to win the first three races of the year. Prior to that, it was Sebastien Bourdais winning the first four races of the 2006 Champ Car World Series races.
Palou will be seeking his first Long Beach victory. He has finished third twice, including last year, and all four of his finishes have been within the top five. A win also makes him a candidate for a future place in the event's walk of fame. But that's for another day.
The first NTT INDYCAR SERIES practice of the weekend is Friday at 6:05 p.m. ET. Saturday's action includes the second series practice at 11:30 a.m. ET and qualifying for the NTT P1 Award at 2:35 p.m. ET. Sunday's warmup is set for noon ET. All of this action will be available on FS1 and the INDYCAR Radio Network.
The 90-lap race has its green flag slated for 4:40 p.m. ET.
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