Kirkwood has established himself as a leading candidate to win any street race, and the organization that employs him has consistently been strong on such circuits. He has six wins in his three-plus seasons with Andretti Global, and five of the wins have been on street circuits.<\/p>\n
Kirkwood has won two of the past three Long Beach races from the pole, including last year, and he finished seventh in the other. He also has won on such circuits in Nashville (2023), Detroit (2025) and Arlington (2026). This would be a good weekend to hold serve.<\/p>\n
Palou is one who could break Kirkwood\u2019s serve.<\/p>\n
The reigning series champion has enjoyed a distinct advantage on the road courses. He has won 16 times on those circuits since joining Chip Ganassi\u2019s organization for the 2021 season. Yes, he has won three street races, including this year\u2019s race in St. Petersburg, where he won for the second straight year. He finished second to Kirkwood last year at Long Beach, and he has five consecutive top-five finishes on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile course. In succession, Palou has finished fourth, third, fifth, third and second in a Ganassi car at Long Beach.<\/p>\n
![\"Kyle](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776248298_823_04-13-Kirkwood.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
It goes without saying that this weekend\u2019s Long Beach race is about more than Kirkwood (photo, above) and Palou. Arrow McLaren\u2019s Christian Lundgaard, who is third in the standings, finished third last year, and Kirkwood is one of five Long Beach winners in this field. The others are Andretti Global\u2019s Will Power (2008, 2012), Chip Ganassi Racing\u2019s Scott Dixon (2015, 2024), ECR\u2019s Alexander Rossi (2018, 2019) and Team Penske\u2019s Josef Newgarden (2022).<\/p>\n
Newgarden stands fifth in points after winning this year\u2019s only oval race, held March 7 at Phoenix Raceway. He has consistently shown that he can win any race on any type of layout, but his recent magic power has been on ovals. There are still five of those left on this year\u2019s schedule, so it would be foolish to count out the two-time series champion. He\u2019s fifth in the standings.<\/p>\n
Dixon is another driver to watch this weekend in Long Beach, and his next win will be the 60th of his incredible career. Only A.J. Foyt has reached that mark, and he finished with 67.<\/p>\n
The list of possible race winners this week is deep. Team Penske newbie David Malukas, who is fourth in the standings, could earn the first series victory of his career. Teammate Scott McLaughlin is another driver to keep an eye on. Arrow McLaren\u2019s Pato O\u2019Ward, too. O\u2019Ward has three street circuit wins on his resume; McLaughlin one.<\/p>\n
Long Beach staged its first street race in 1984, and the spectacle has turned into a cornerstone of each INDYCAR SERIES schedule. The competition is always fierce, but this year it starts with the drivers at the top of the standings. Holding serve is important; breaking serve is the counter.<\/p>\n
The action starts Friday with the first practice at 6 p.m. ET on FS1. Qualifying for the NTT P1 Award is at 6:30 p.m. ET Saturday on FS1.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s 85-lap race airs live on FOX, FOX Deportes, FOX One, the FOX Sports app and INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls at 5:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hold serve or break serve. That\u2019s where the pursuit of the Astor Challenge Cup stands early in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-268872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}