Oilpressure

Is it just me, or does it seem like we have gone months without an IndyCar race? If you want to get technical, we have. The last points-paying race was run six weeks ago. Yes there was the exhibition event at Thermal Club, the Open Test at IMS and a few random team tests at various tracks – but it’s been a while since a wheel was turned in true competition. That changes this weekend.

In fact, we are about to be going from famine to feast, starting this weekend. Counting Indianapolis 500 Qualifying weekend, we are entering a stretch where there will be a race weekend for seven of the next eight weekends. Between this weekend’s event at Long Beach and Road America on June 9; there is only one weekend with no racing activity – May 5.

That stretch starts today with this afternoon’s practice for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. I can’t think of a better place to reboot the season than the second-longest running event on the NTT IndyCar Series schedule. Long Beach is an excellent showcase for IndyCar. The weather always seems perfect, the crowds are outstanding, the setting is like something off of a post card and the racing is, well…decent.

The visuals from this event are hard to top. The scene of cars coming off of the Turn 11 hairpin onto the long straightaway along Shoreline Drive with the RMS Queen Mary in the background is almost iconic. In more recent years, the track has meandered through a roundabout featuring the now-familiar dolphin fountain set among multi-colored flowers in a checkered pattern. From there, the track gets down to business. There are a series of right and left-hand turns connected by a not-as-long backstretch along Seaside Way. How a driver does through this section, sets up whether or not they are able to be successful on the long passing zone on Shoreline Drive.

This race debuted as a Formula 5000 race in 1975, when Brian Redman won for Carl Hass Racing in a September event. The following year, the race moved to a spring date, and hosted Formula One through 1983. F1 winners included names like Clay Regazzoni, Mario Andretti, Gilles Villeneuve, Nelson Piquet and Niki Lauda. Beginning in 1984, Long Beach became a CART event and it has been the domain of IndyCar ever since.

As Curt Cavin pointed out on Trackside the other night, Long Beach does not produce fluke winners. Carlos Huertas or Héctor Rebaque never stole a race at Long Beach. The list of IndyCar winners at Long Beach contains no pretenders. It is almost exclusively made up of Indianapolis 500 winners and/or series champions. Between 1984 and 2020, only two Long Beach winners did not have either on their resume – Mike Conway and James Hinchcliffe. The last three years have produced two more that (so far) have not accomplished either – Colton Herta in 2021 and last year’s winner, Kyle Kirkwood.

One interesting side note for this weekend is the introduction of the aero screen 2.0 – a thinner and slightly lighter version of the aero screen that debuted in 2020. This is advertised as a complete redesign, with some interesting looking air vents to improve driver cooling. I’ll be curious to see if the looks have improved the not-so-pleasing head-on view of the car. It will be run on all road and street courses this season, but apparently not the ovals.

With the race taking place on the west coast, the Friday practice will be shown live on Peacock in the evening for those of us in the eastern part of the US. Friday’s practice will begin at 5:50 pm EDT and will run until 7:05 pm EDT. Saturday morning’s practice will begin at 11:25 am EDT and will run for one hour, ending at 12:25 pm EDT, also on Peacock. Qualifying will be shown live on Peacock and will start at 2:25 pm EDT and will conclude at 3:55 pm EDT. Sunday’s morning warm-up will begin live on Peacock at Noon EDT, and will last for thirty minutes. Sunday’s race will begin at 3:00 pm EDT on USA Network and Peacock – not Big NBC.

An Andretti car has won this race four out of the past five races. Only Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden broke that string in 2022. Chip Ganassi hasn’t won at Long Beach since 2015, when Scott Dixon collected his only victory at “The Beach”. There are currently six former Long Beach winners entered for Sunday’s race – Will Power (two wins), Alexander Rossi (two wins), Scott Dixon, Colton Herta, Josef Newgarden and Kyle Kirkwood.

Will there be a repeat winner from this list, or will Long Beach produce a new winner? There is a definite trend at Long Beach, and I think it will continue. I think Andretti Global has this track figured out. Kyle Kirkwood won it last year, but I don’t think he’ll win two in a row. I think Marcus Ericsson is still settling in at Andretti, so I predict that Colton Herta will win his second victory at Long Beach. We’ll see.

George Phillips

Shameless Plug:  This past Monday night, I was the guest on a racing podcast – Motorsport of the Americas. I was asked about my perspective on the Month of May, as well as current-day IndyCar topics. Feel free to give yours truly a listen. – GP

https://shows.acast.com/motorsport/episodes/mota-previews-the-month-of-may-with-george-phillips

This entry was posted on April 19, 2024 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.