{"id":8456,"date":"2022-04-09T07:00:07","date_gmt":"2022-04-09T14:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/?p=50000003085"},"modified":"2022-04-09T05:53:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-09T12:53:00","slug":"indycar-promises-star-power-at-long-beach-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/news\/indycar-promises-star-power-at-long-beach-grand-prix","title":{"rendered":"IndyCar promises star power at Long Beach Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">This year\u2019s IndyCar race features some real star power, with seven former Long Beach champions in the field of 26 for Sunday\u2019s race at the 47th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Two-time winner Will Power is joined by Alexander Rossi, Takuma Sato, Scott Dixon, Simon Pagenaud, and last year\u2019s winner, Colton Herta for the noon race on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">A native of France, Pagenuad said that the entire international field feels right at home in the International City.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt\u2019s my favorite race,&#8221; he said. It\u2019s the first place I raced in the US and I\u2019ve had great success here.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;I love the track. To me it\u2019s like music, there\u2019s a rhythm to each racetrack. And this track to me has a rhythm that flows for me as a person, and I enjoy it very much. It\u2019s always fast\u2014it feels effortless to me, that\u2019s how it feels to drive around this place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Grand Prix Association of Long Beach President and CEO Jim Michaelian was as happy as he\u2019s been in the nearly half-century history of the race at media day on Thursday. For one thing, Sunday\u2019s race will feature major stars of the racing world; for another, <a href=\"https:\/\/lbbusinessjournal.com\/news\/a-postcard-of-what-long-beach-has-to-offer-grand-prix-returns-to-network-tv\">it will be televised live<\/a> on NBC, the first time it\u2019s been on broadcast network television since 2007.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Some of the support races will also be broadcast on cable this year, including Saturday\u2019s IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship race on USA Network Saturday at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThis event has always been a party, something you can bring your whole family to in the spring,\u201d said Michaelian. \u201cWe loved having everyone here in September but we love April more. We want people reorienting themselves back to coming to Long Beach for spring break for music, expos, kid zones, and the races. This is a destination race, someplace people want to come to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Michaelian said that presale indicators show that the race will be back to pre-pandemic attendance totals, with sales mirroring 2018 and 2019.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">He also said that the recent <a href=\"https:\/\/lbbusinessjournal.com\/news\/mandate-free-grand-prix-marks-turning-point-in-long-beachs-covid-recovery\">removal of vaccine mandates for large events<\/a> in California was critical for the Grand Prix, as perhaps the only event in the state that was both an indoor and an outdoor large event.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe\u2019re a hybrid, and I don\u2019t think anybody thought about that because we\u2019re the only one around,\u201d the CEO said. \u201cSo we were trying to figure out how to have a vaccine requirement for inside the Convention Center, but not for outside at the race, and we just couldn\u2019t do it, physically. So we were going to have to test everybody or require cards from everybody, that was going to be really difficult for us. So when the city and the state removed the mandate, I had a big smile on my face. Now you can invite people and say, \u2018Don\u2019t worry about it\u2014come have fun.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Fans coming out or tuning in Sunday will have more than just the seven former winners to look forward to. It\u2019s also traditionally been a kingmaker for talented young drivers\u2014Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy, Juan Pablo Montoya, Mike Conway, and Sato all won their first IndyCar races of their careers in Long Beach; Ryan Hunter-Reay also kicked off a great run with Andretti Autosport with his Long Beach win in 2010.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Race fans who want to follow every turn can check out today\u2019s qualifying race at 12:05 p.m. Saturday (practice and qualifying will also be streamed on Peacock Premium, NBC Sports\u2019 streaming service).<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">On Sunday, the 47th Grand Prix of Long Beach will start its warmup at 9 a.m., with the green flag scheduled to start the 85-lap race at noon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This year\u2019s IndyCar race features some real star power, with seven former Long Beach champions in the field of 26 for Sunday\u2019s race at the 47th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":17243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[223],"tags":[15],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[2730],"class_list":["post-8456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-acura-grand-prix-of-long-beach","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8456"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=8456"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}