2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES Round 3 of 17: The 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach (feat. IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship!)What’s up? It’s time for the classic Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, which means two things: 1) we can finally stop talking about date palms (THANK GOD) and 2) we’re finally going to a track where Álex Palou hasn’t won a race (for now). This is the second of three INDYCAR races in California and the second in the same general region of California, so it’s a miracle one of them hasn’t perished from redundance poisoning. Given Long Beach’s proximity to Thermal, I guess you could call this a double-header of sorts? Only in INDYCAR would we have a regional double-header separated by three weeks. Only in an INDYCAR thread are we going to pass the time with a rambling discussion about supermarkets and delicatessens that ends with most of us aching for cabernet-flavored dental rinse. Thankfully, we can cleanse our palate with a race this week!
Hey Check Out That Schedule
Friday, April 11
07:30 – Gates Open
07:45 – GT America Practice 1
09:00 – IMSA Practice 1
10:15 – Historic Formula Exhibition Practice
11:40 – GT America Practice 2
12:25 – Stadium SUPER Trucks Presented by F***ing Robby Gordon Practice
13:00 – IMSA Practice 2
15:05 – NTT INDYCAR SERIES Practice 1
16:35 – GT America Qualifying
17:00 – NTT INDYCAR SERIES All-Driver Autograph Session in the Paddock
17:10 – IMSA Qualifying
18:30 – Super Drift Challenge 1
18:30 – Friday Concert Starring DVBBS (OMGWTFLOLBBQ)
Saturday, April 12
07:30 – Gates Open
07:45 – Historic Formula Exhibition Practice 2
08:30 – NTT INDYCAR SERIES Practice 2
10:45 – Historic Formula Exhibition Race 1
11:30 – NTT INDYCAR SERIES Qualifying
13:00 – IMSA Pre-Race Festivities
14:00 – IMSA SportsCar Grand Prix (100 min)
16:30 – Stadium SUPER Trucks Presented by F***ing Robby Gordon Race 1
17:20 – GT America Race 1
18:30 – Super Drift Challenge 2
18:30 – Saturday Concert Starring FOREIGNER (gotta take a little time... a little time to think things over)
Sunday, April 13
07:30 – Gates Open
09:00 – NTT INDYCAR SERIES Warm-Up
10:45 – Historic Formula Exhibition Race 2
11:20 – GT America Race 2
12:15 – Mothers Exotic Car Parade
12:50 – NTT INDYCAR SERIES Pre-Race
13:15 – “DRIVERS! START!! YOUR!!! ENGINES!!!!” (this is apparently on every schedule this year)
13:30 – The 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach
16:30 – Stadium SUPER Trucks Presenting by F***ing Robby Gordon Race 2
As with the last race weekend, all these times are Pacific Daylight. Go with Young Skywalker to the Tosche Station to pick up a time zone converter.
Looking for the Spotter Guide?
It’s Showtime
North American and United Kingdom Viewers
If you’re in the United States, you can see the NTT INDYCAR SERIES on the FOX collection of networks. Practice and warm-up are on FOX Sports 1, qualifying is on FOX Sports 2, and the race is on your local FOX affiliate.
If you’re from That Country Up North, you can find the NTT INDYCAR SERIES on TSN or TSN+.
If you like jamming the letter u into various things, Sky Sports F1 is where you want to be.
International Viewers
Not sure which sketchy ass television-controlling conglomerate INDYCAR has partnered with in your country? Not to worry, INDYCAR knows!
And for the Totally Cool and Legal People
If you are so lucky that you definitely live in one of those countries with no broadcast partner for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES (I mean, all MY questionable internet activity comes from Albania, doesn’t yours?), you can subscribe to The Official Streaming Service of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, INDYCAR Live, and get live and on-demand access to every last session as it happens, live. Can you believe it?
It’s Not Just the Beach That’s Long
The track may be giving us the same kind of joy it did fifty years ago, but I guarantee you the “Family Fun Zone” isn’t.Long Beach Street Circuit
First INDYCAR Race: 1984
Surface: Roads that have seen things
Turns: 11 (6 lefts, 5 rights)
Track Length: 1.968 miles
Number of Laps: 90
Race Distance: 177.12 miles
Ideal Pit Strategy: 2 stops
Qualifying Lap Record: 1:05.309, Colton Herta (2022)
Race Lap Record: 1:07.2359, Álex Palou (2024)
X: @GPLongBeach
’Winningest’ Driver: Al Unser Jr. (6 wins)
’Winningest’ Team: Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing (7 wins each)
’Winningest’ Engine: Honda (21 wins)
2024 Lead Changes: 8
2024 Overtakes: 168, 107 for position
2024 Yellows: 1, for 4 laps
Long Beach represents our second trip to the greater Los Angeles area, which boasts the second-largest population amongst US metropolitan centers and, depending on who you ask, a cost of living so sky-high it’s second only to Honolulu. There are good pockets and there are pockets where you’d be confronted with enough homeless junkies walking around that you’d think you’d been teleported into an episode of The Walking Dead. I guess if you don’t know the Stater Brothers from the Smothers Brothers, or the Statler Brothers, or even Hey Brother Baker, you would think we’re in the City of Brotherly Love (oh brother)—but this is California, baby! So enjoy your $23 hot dogs, exorbitant sales taxes, overbearing social programs, and ubiquitous monolithic bureaucratic institutions, because you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
If you don’t know what you’re looking at, I can’t help you.Long Beach wasn’t always the idyllic, kid-friendly celebration of cars and racing that it is today. It was once a port town inhabited by loads of morally flexible folk and a good place to find more than one kind of dishonorable discharge, as well as ladies who were known as “Hamburger Queens” (hint: they were neither Tiffany-twisted nor had Mercedes-Benzes). History records Long Beach as being rough, bouncy, tight, and racy—and that’s just the track. Seriously, it was bad, not unlike some of the cesspits the hardcore racers amongst us may have visited in their time—but how did we end up in this particular cesspit?
The Grand Prix of Long Beach was the bastard brainspawn of renegade expat travel agent Chris Pook and down-on-his-luck bike-commuting physics major Jim Michaelian, and began life as a pitch to revitalize the area to its former glory. While most people with hefty bags of coin have little patience for such aspirational bullshit, with support from Dan Gurney—and the help of Bernie Ecclestone threatening an international incident to strong-arm the California Coastal Commission and potentially deep-six the presidential campaign of then-California governor Jerry Brown—the race went from hemorrhaging money as a Formula 5000 race in 1975 to spending the next eight years as a Formula One Grand Prix, after which it became a CART event raced by Indy cars and has remained so in some form ever since. The track assembly is a suicidal, around-the-clock, eight week ordeal that involves placing barriers and dropping 100,000 lb bridges in and around the utter hell that is SoCal traffic, but the sheer inertia behind the prestige of this race being second only to the Indianapolis 500 in US racing is enough to keep it going.
Tell Me What Happened Here Last Year!
“Today, it was really fun driving my Honda.” ~ Scott Dixon, Long Beach 2024
Former forklift expert Felix Rosenvqvist captured Meyer Shank Racing’s first INDYCAR pole position and led the field to the start alongside Will Power. The race was a bit of a noob massacre, with only a single non-winner finishing amongst the Top 10, and an INDYCAR strategy classic, with a single full-course yellow caused by Christian Rasmussen on Lap 15 setting the stage for a battle of the eggheads. While Power led a gaggle of Hondas into the pits on a fuel-saving route to the flag, the rest of the field elected not to stop and run full rich to the end. If you’re a regular here, you probably knew where this was going as soon as I said “fuel-saving”, and you’d be correct, as Scott Dixon withstood insane pressure from Josef Newgarden and then Colton Herta on a 34-lap economy run that looked anything but to reach the flag and claim his second win at Long Beach.
And Where Did We Leave Off Last Race?
“Do you like surfing?”
“No. It seems like a great way to get eaten by a shark.”
~ Will Buxton and James Hinchcliffe, Thermal Practice 2, 2025
Our cadre of INDYCAR adventurers visited the gated community of Thermal, where we got to watch 85% of a race and imagine the other 15%. Newly christened as a points-paying venue, The Thermal Club for the Rich and Famous (Rich AF, if you will) was hosting its first proper round of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. Things were a little cheesy before the race, but became a little less grating when we got to see FOX’s fancy new ghost car technology. The weekend began poorly for Prema when Robert Shwartzman’s car self-immolated, and proceeded to go even worse for Team Penske, who were uncharacteristically sent packing from Q1 with one of their worst collective qualifying efforts since the 1995 Indy 500. I guess at least this time it was only in front of 3,000 fans. McLaren locked out the front row, with Pato O’Ward claiming his first NTT P1 Award of the season using a duckload of speed, and teammate Christian Lundgaard lining up beside him.
The start of the race was a less orderly affair, with Scott McLaughlin and Devlin deFrancesco Dracone playing a game of chicken on their way up to the pack that ultimately ended with deFrancesco making a move that looked like an audition for an episode of Jackass, T-boning McLaughlin and ruining any hope either had for a good result. After the race, McLaughlin rampaged over to Dammit Devlin’s pit box (it’s OK Devlin, I thought my name was Dammit when I was growing up too) and the two of them exchanged pleasantries. I’m not sure why Scotty Mac was trying to give Newgarden a run for his title of World’s Nicest Asshole, but it was entertaining at least.
Scotty Mac would be wise to heed the advice of Friedrich Schiller: “against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain”.Despite all the dust and bodywork spraying awkwardly out into space, none of this was dramatic enough to trigger the interference of a full-course yellow—and ultimately, nothing that happened would be. Everyone settled into a pretty stable rhythm, running several seconds apart from one another as if they were in an F1 race from 2003. Perhaps somewhat like a race from that bygone time, this dull period was enlivened by off-track chaos, not in the form of a fanatical priest but as an overheating issue that zapped the TV feed for about 10 laps in the middle of the race (the clue to prepare for that was in the name of the venue guys). The pictures started tweaking like the head of a dying fembot in Austin Powers before meeting the same tragic fate, and all manner of hell broke loose as INDYCAR viewers around the world were variously subjected to advertisements for trashy reality TV, commentators horsing around, and—God help us all—NASCAR.
I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here but if you told me it was happening while the FOX broadcast was scrambling to get its signal back I’d believe you.
As sanity prevailed and pictures—of INDYCAR racing, thankfully—befell our eyes, we quickly caught up with everything we missed, which turned out to be... nothing. After 10 laps, the gaps were static, O’Ward was still leading, and the race was miraculously still going on. Not that it was easy to determine any of that with FOX’s graphics, mind you. Almost certainly by accident, FOX had stumbled onto a winning formula for dull races—just remove all relevant information for the viewer, and even a procession seems unpredictable!
That’s a relief—I was worried they’d spent some of those laps on pogo sticks.It was tough going. Alas, when all hope seemed lost, Harbinger of Lost Hopes Álex Palou, who up to this point surely must have spent the race searching for his car keys, delivered us from the rampant boredom and enlivened the show, with a multi-corner attempt to get the better of Lundgaard that was probably as ill-advised as it was legendary. With Palou in second place and on the preferred tire, hauling in O’Ward at over two seconds each lap like he found the secret hammer suit power-up in the hidden ? block room underneath pit lane, O’Ward probably felt a bit like the ghosts in Pac-Man do when you get the power pellet—what I’m trying to say is it looked like some video game shit, like he’d OD’d on Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor (DAAAAAAMNNN).
The result was all but inescapable, as our Conquistador of Concrete proved he’s also an Annihilator of Asphalt. When it was all said and done, Palou’s mythological ability to evade misfortune meant he still had a 100% win rate at Thermal.
Let’s be honest, he could’ve stopped to fix the TV feed and it’d still have ended this way.The Verdict
Better than: Half the field driving around off the pace waiting for half-time
Not as good as: A race where fans show up
Wait for it: Farmer Wants a Wife: INDYCAR Edition
The Story So Far
NTT INDYCAR SERIES
1st – Álex Palou (102 pts)
2nd – Pato O’Ward (63 pts)
3rd – Scott Dixon (61 pts)
4th – Christian Lundgaard (60 pts)
5th – Felix Rosenqvist (56 pts)
6th – Kyle Kirkwood (54 pts)
7th – Josef Newgarden (53 pts)
8th – Colton Herta (47 pts)
9th – Alexander Rossi (43 pts)
10th – Scott McLaughlin (41 pts)
It’s already looking pretty bad for anyone not named “Palou”, but nothing is certain in this euphoric swirl of divine chaos we call INDYCAR—Dixon lost a 61-point lead to World’s Douchiest Nice Guy Josef Newgarden over 5 races in 2017. It’s still anybody’s game.
NTT INDYCAR SERIES Fantasy Challenge Driven by Firestone
1st – Cig35Racing (1351 pts)
2nd – Bring Back Villeneuve (1348 pts)
3rd – No Ordinary Rabbit (1329 pts)
4th – Stuey Racing (1326 pts)
5th – Loup Garou Racing (1313 pts)
6th – Lilynator (1272 pts)
7th – JellyFishCake (1265 pts)
8th – tpatricio (1263 pts)
9th – prommer (1244 pts)
10th – Teamy! (1234 pts)
THIS GAME IS DEVISED AS A SKILL AND KNOWLEDGE-BASED, NON-GAMBLING PROMOTION AND IS INTENDED SOLELY FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES
Got all that? Good, ‘cause we’ve got TWO, count ‘em, TWO races this weekend!
Whack That Devil Into My Fiddlestick
NTT INDYCAR SERIES
“It can get messy quick here at Long Beach.” ~ Pato O’Ward, Long Beach 2024
Most will probably be wondering if we’ll actually get a championship battle this year. Álex Palou has never won at Long Beach, but that doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to Palou and winning. Elsewhere in the field, we’ve got intra-team battles galore, with O’Ward vs. Lundgaard for control of McLaren, Newgarden vs. Power vs. McLaughlin in their eternal struggle for Penske supremacy, and Colton Herta vs. Andretti Global’s operational efficiency in a battle for his own sanity. Meyer Shank has been sneakily good this year, and like Takuma Sato, seems to excel on INDYCAR’s biggest stages. Alexander Rossi has had a quiet resurgence at ECR, RLL continues to chase its tail amongst the arrival of former INDYCAR president Jay Frye, and Prema continues its literal baptism by fire. Amongst it all lurks Dixon, who was uncharacteristically fiery on and off track in St. Pete and not unreasonably behind Palou the last time we were on the streets.
All of this brewing in the background means that with every passing lap the probability of a car ending up in the fountain approaches 1—except maybe it’s one of those functions where it only advances in 1/2 increments so it never actually gets there. Who’d want to hurt those adorable checkered-flag flower patches anyway?
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship
“I cannot touch balls.” ~ IMSA Driver Ryan Dalziel
The
Meanwhile in GTD—presumably chosen as the complimentary class for this weekend because it’s NOT full of dentists—we’ve seen an uptick in entries. AO Racing’s Rexy (it’s a Porsche painted like a dinosaur, what’s not to love) enters its first GTD event with Laurens Vanthoor and is joined by multiple Lexii from former INDYCAR entrants Vasser Sullivan Racing. GTD also sees our old friend Robert Wickens back in action during an INDYCAR race weekend, making his IMSA WeatherTech debut driving for DXDT Racing in a Corvette equipped with hand controls.
So long as it doesn’t all end like this, I think we’ll be OK:
The Regular Features
The Official Unofficial NTT INDYCAR SERIES Mad Lib
It’s hard enough to predict what will happen in most NTT INDYCAR SERIES races, but here’s your chance to try! Grab a bowl of your favorite breakfast cereal and fill in the blanks below to tell the story of the 50th Grand Prix of Long Beach in (mostly) your own words:
It was a ___________ day in Long Beach, which had the field feeling __________ about the race. As the drivers came to the start stand the ___________ flag was waved, and the race was _________________________. When they finally approached Turn 1, _______________ managed to ________________ his braking point on the inside of __________________, forcing him into ___________________. Will Power yelled _______________ on the radio, after displaying _________________ to __________________. Once we’d moved on from the incident, the race was __________________, and everyone’s strategies were _________________. This prompted _________ to save fuel until ____________________ encountered Santino Ferrucci ____________________ aggressively in the braking zone at Turn 9, angrily waving his _______________ for the world to see. There was debris on the track and race control decided to _______________________, playing directly into the hands of ________. The weather being ___________ gave an advantage to ______________ who had stopped _________________________ his engineers just long enough to drive over a ______________ on pit lane. Rather than penalizing him with a __________________ he was given a post-race __________________. _______________ had the moment of the race when he _______________ right up into ______________, narrowly avoiding _______________ but unfortunately the TV director missed it because he was busy focusing on some _____________________________ near the aquarium. With ____________________ out of contention and the laps ticking down, the race was quickly becoming a duel between Palou and __________________, who had benefitted from __________________________________________________ a forklift. On the final lap, Palou and ____________________ went side-by-side into the _________________ miraculously missing the ________________ and causing the audience to __________________________. ___________________ had blown his ___________________ but was not to be deterred, rallying forward and gaining _________ positions, but none of it was enough to stop Palou, who had ___________________________ into the tires to hold off __________________________ and save his ____________________ for when he needed it. All in all, it was a ______________ race!
Desire Answers For Unasked Questions? (aka DAFUQ?)
- The Long Beach circuit is 148 miles from The Thermal Club—excluding the IMS oval and road course combo, the only two tracks on the INDYCAR calendar closer than this are the Milwaukee Mile and Road America at a 60 mile distance.
- The Grand Prix of Long Beach has been held in 7 different layouts.
- The Grand Prix of Long Beach has been run in April 43 times. It wasn’t run in April in 1975 (September), 1976, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984 (March), and 2020 (September).
- If a McLaren driver wins the race, they will join John Watson and Niki Lauda as McLaren winners here.
- Mario Andretti and Al Unser Jr. have more wins here (10) than all other American drivers combined (9).
- With an unprecedented 15-race streak dating back to 2009, Dallara has won at Long Beach more than any other chassis manufacturer.
- This year’s IMSA race is the 20th IMSA-sanctioned race at Long Beach (Grand-Am was a one-time support act prior to its IMSA merger and sanction in 2006).
- GM has the most overall IMSA wins here with 8, and ties Honda for the longest overall winning streak for an engine manufacturer here in either IMSA or INDYCAR with 7 straight wins from 2015-2022 (Honda won all but one post-split CART race here, with a streak from 1996-2002). Since the UAK-18 was introduced, GM has won just one INDYCAR race here.
- Porsche Penske Motorsport managing director and Indy 500-winning engineer Jonathan Diuguid has a palindromic last name.
- Simon Pagenaud and Sébastien Bourdais are the only two drivers who have won at Long Beach in both IMSA and open-wheel competition.
- One-time INDYCAR podium finisher EJ Viso won the Stadium SUPER Trucks Presented by F***ing Robby Gordon race in 2015.
- From 1977 to 2016, a staple of the Grand Prix of Long Beach was a 10-lap celebrity pro-am race in showroom stock cars, during which professional drivers competed against celebrities who received a 30-second head start. Notable celebrity winners who also managed an overall win include Caitlyn Jenner (x2), Jason Bateman, Donny Osmond, Alfonso Ribeiro (x3), Dara Torres, and Jamie Little. Alfonso Ribeiro had the most overall wins at 4, winning once as a professional.
- At 177.12 miles, this year’s edition will be the longest Grand Prix of Long Beach since 2003.
- 17712 is the number for an ISO standard describing mechanical seals in freight containers.
You Wish You Had...
... a badass alter ego like Dwight Brody.
Take a Drink Every Time...
… someone complains about the cartoon heads on the scoring pylon.
Do You Remember...
... when Christian Lundgaard tried to look like a porn star?
Anagram of the Day:
Louis Foster / Loose Fruits
Fun at the Beach
FOX Sports proudly declares that "Jim Michaelian has done it all in 50 years at Long Beach,” which leads me to wonder if their headline editor is aware of how that could be read given the history of the venue in question. Perhaps the fact that tens of millions of people have stories from this event dating back half a century is an indicator that, just maybe, it really is America’s #1 street race®. Though the cars that race here have changed through the years, we’re more than fortunate to be able to *unh* double-up *unh-unh* every year with IMSA and INDYCAR, two series whose names are all capital letters, but only one of those because those letters are an acronym for anything. Then again, if INDYCAR isn’t actually an acronym for “I Never Doubted You Cared About Racing,” it damn well should be.
... huh?
Yes, I know there’s a week to go until the race. You’re bored? You want me to do something about it? Maybe try reading the OP again as one of Long Beach’s natives might...
A good chortle at the "dishonorable discharge" line.
Like when they found a 
Oh, and the traffic, though the LBGP only impacts local traffic on those specific streets, so...less than a normal day elsewhere around the metroplex 
