re: 2023 IndyCar Season - R17 Laguna Seca 9/10 2:30 pm ET (NBC)

These mfers put on a show at Texas

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I heard no six-shooters anymore.

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Gay

We went to the race today. It was my first experience and holy moly was that fun. The ending was pretty anticlimactic bc of the crash, but I’ll def do this again.

Today's Long Beach Grand Prix will be IndyCar's 39th race at this event.

Promoter Chris Pook staged the Long Beach Grand Prix as an F1 race from 1976 to 1983 (8 events). Winners of the "United States Grand Prix West" included Mario Andretti, Gilles Villeneuve, Nelson Piquet, and Niki Lauda. However, the risk/reward ratio was too high so Pook and the City of Long Beach switched to IndyCar starting in 1984. About 10 years ago Pook started pushing for the Long Beach Grand Prix to switch back to F1. In 2016 the Long Beach Beach City Council studied proposals to bring back F1 but ultimately rejected them in favor of sticking with IndyCar. I assume it was for the same reason—the financial risks were too high. I wonder if in this Drive to Survive era the Long Beach City Council will look into F1 again when the current IndyCar contract is up for renewal. After the Indy 500, The Long Beach GP is the 2nd most popular event on the IndyCar schedule. It would be a huge blow to the series to lose the Long Beach GP.

Here's a picture from the 1st F1 Long Beach GP race in 1976. When I was a kid I built a 1/12 scale Tamiya model of that Ferrari 312T. I remember the flat 12 engine.


As an IndyCar race the event has been very successful. On pole today is Kyle Kirkwood, in his 2nd year in the series but in his first year at Andretti Autosport. Starting from pole on a street circuit, Kirkwood has a chance to get his first career win. IndyCar drivers to get their first career win at Long Beach include Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy, Juan Pablo Montoya, Mike Conway, and Takuma Sato. Here's the starting grid:

P01 Kyle Kirkwood (#27 Andretti / Honda)
P02 Marcus Ericsson (#8 Ganassi / Honda)
P03 Romain Grosjean (#28 Andretti / Honda)
P04 Alex Palou (#10 Ganassi / Honda)
P05 Scott Dixon (#9 Ganassi / Honda)
P06 Pato O'Ward (#5 McLaren / Chevy)
P07 Colton Herta (#26 Andretti / Honda)
P08 Josef Newgarden (#2 Penske / Chevy)
P09 Scott McLaughlin (#3 Penske / Chevy)
P10 Felix Rosenqvist (#6 McLaren / Chevy)
P11 Alexander Rossi (#7 McLaren / Chevy)
P12 Marcus Armstrong [R] (#11 Ganassi / Honda)
P13 Will Power (#12 Penske / Chevy)
P14 Simon Pagenaud (#60 Meyer Shank / Honda)
P15 Jack Harvey (#30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan / Honda)
P16 Hélio Castroneves (#06 Meyer Shank / Honda)
P17 Christian Lundgaard (#45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan / Honda)
P18 Santino Ferrucci (#14 Foyt / Chevy)
P19 Rinus VeeKay (#21 Carpenter / Chevy)
P20 Devlin DeFrancesco (#29 Andretti / Honda)
P21 Sting Ray Robb [R] (#51 Coyne / Honda)
P22 Callum Ilott (#77 Juncos Hollinger / Chevy)
P23 Benjamin Pedersen [R] (#55 Foyt / Chevy)
P24 Graham Rahal (#15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan / Honda)
P25 David Malukas (#18 Coyne / Honda)
P26 Agustín Canapino [R] (#78 Juncos Hollinger / Chevy)
P27 Conor Daly (#20 Carpenter / Chevy)

Love Long Beach. I've been 3 or 4 times, most recently last year. I would have loved to watch them back in the day when the cars went up on Ocean Blvd then turned down the hill.

The American Monaco! Sorta.

Tune in to NBC now!

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Love Long Beach. I've been 3 or 4 times, most recently last year. I would have loved to watch them back in the day when the cars went up on Ocean Blvd then turned down the hill.

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I've seen pics. That looked like a cool layout. And of course the 70s F1 cars were awesome.

damn..did not make it by a couple seconds

Wow, I was going to say Dixon so rarely makes mistakes, but Pato dived in too late. They might rule it a racing incident, but I would penalize Pato.

Oward sold it out there

He messes up too bad and Zak gonna put him in the Mclaren as punishment.