This is the 51st Long Beach Grand Prix.
That’s the most generic name I can come up with. It’s not the name they (the organizers) want you to use.
It’s supposed to be the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Before that, it was the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Sponsors pay to have their names come first, you know.
This will be my 32nd Grand Prix. I’ve actually been in Long Beach for 34 races, but missed one because of a bleeding ulcer and another because my dad picked a bad time of the year to die.
As is the case with many really old people like me, I have a tendency to reminisce about the old days. I can’t speak personally about the really old days, when cars went flying (sometimes literally) up Pine Avenue and onto Ocean Boulevard. I wasn’t an eye witness to the tough transition from Formula One to IndyCar, either.
But I’ve written about both enough to feel like I was there.
I’ve talked before about the first few years I covered the Grand Prix, walking through the RV park where people partied on the roofs of their campers, shouting lewd remarks people wouldn’t even think of today. That was on the Convention Center parking lot currently occupied by the Pike Outlets.
The course map changed every few years as the waterfront changed. More places were found for grandstands, but they were always full on Sunday for the main race, no matter how many seats had been added from the year before.
We didn’t have Fitbits or Smart Watches in the 1990s, but I’ll guarantee I got a couple of weeks worth of steps in the three Grand Prix days walking the circuit taking pictures for the paper. The real work had taken place in the couple of weeks before race weekend, when we turned out a Grand Prix special section that topped 100 pages a couple of years, and had literally everything you wanted to know about the races and other stuff going on.
I was around for the transition from Chris Pook to Jim Michaelian – a textbook example of a succession plan, by the way. Jim had been with the Grand Prix Association since the beginning, and had Chris’s full support. It didn’t hurt any that Chris had left to take over the overarching IndyCar association.
In short, there was plenty of movement on the business side of the operation. But what the public saw every year was a three-day 200 MPH Beach Party centered around some impressive automobile racing. Consistency counts.
I think many of us went into mourning when it was decided to end theToyota Pro-Celebrity Race in 2016. It had been quite a kick to see people from the entertainment world (and a few athletes from other sports) try their hand at car racing. People still talk about Donny Osmond’s spectacular rollover crash in 1999 – without getting hurt.
When Toyota head honchos decided to pull that plug, it seemed only a matter of time before they would pull the title sponsorship they had held for many years. It was quite a coup when Michaelian managed to come up with another title sponsor before the next race – Acura (Honda’s luxury brand) has held onto that title for seven years and counting.
Do you recall that little thing called COVID? Its arrival prompted the unthinkable – cancelation of the 2020 race. Worse, the track had mostly been built before the edict to cancel came down, and all that expense had to be swallowed by the association.
Everything was still shut down in April 2021. But the quick-moving Michaelian managed to convince the powers that be in the city and IndyCar to let Long Beach have the last race of the season in September, so 2021 was sort of salvaged. And the association completed the six-month turn-around to get the 2022 race back to its traditional April slot.
Last year’s 50th Anniversary was a true celebration of everything Long Beach Grand Prix. Michaelian was rightfully proud of what has become the premiere road race on the North American continent. And the main race itself was actually exciting – something that’s not always the case.
This year was supposed to be Michaelian’s farewell tour. He was going to get to visit with drivers and team owners one more time. He was set to introduce them to the Sunday crowd, and bask in the adulation of those who knew how much he had put into the Grand Prix. His friends, including me, were looking forward to celebrating with him.
Then he went and died.
There will be tributes and a moment of silence for Michaelian this weekend. The race weekend will go on, and the fans will have a great time – most without ever knowing that the Long Beach Grand Prix has experienced a loss.
The new president and CEO, Jim Liaw, will pick up the torch and carry on. The Grand Prix team will rally around him and make it happen, because that’s what Michaelian would have wanted, what Michaelian would have done.
See you at the races this weekend. This one’s for you, my friend.