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Monday, April 2
America's biggest beach party set
By Jack Arute
Special to ESPN.com
The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach is the American opener for the CART Fed-Ex Championship Series. Its also one of CART's longest running road shows.
There was a time when you didn't have to look too far down the starting grid of a Long Beach race to find the eventual winner. Despite a sweeping front stretch on the Southern California coastal city's Shoreline Drive, the radius of the corners leading into and out of Shoreline negated the almost 200 mph aspects of their connector.
|  | | Paul Tracy steered his way from the 17th starting spot to Victory Lane at Long Beach, Calif., in 2000. |
Paul Tracy disproved that last season. The Team KOOL Green driver came from 17th to win the 2000 edition. The course that Tracy wrestled to submission was far different than the one on which Niki Lauda took the pole in 1977. But it still provides the elements of excitement that were there when Lauda, Mario Andretti and eventual winner Jody Scheckter treated the crowd to quite a show.
By 1984, the event's founder, Chris Pook, ditched the Formula One race, opting instead for the stars of CART. Pook and his operations man, Dwight Tanaka, have tweaked the course over the years. Their latest twist came with the construction of the Long Beach City Aquarium. Out went the right-hander at the end of Shoreline that led cars onto a maze through the grounds of the Hyatt Hotel and the Long Beach Convention Center.
A left-hander onto Aquarium Way and four right turns of differing radius lengthened the course to 1.968 miles. The matching, yet shorter, connecting straightaway constructed on Seaside Way, just blocks east of Shoreline, has become an excellent passing zone.
Turn 11, the tightest right-turn in CART (if not in all of racing) still treats fans to an acceleration exhibition as the Champ Cars end a lap.
Drivers like Jimmy Vasser think the Long Beach track rewards patience.
"I like to let other guys set the pace early," the Patrick Racing pilot said. "I always want to have a little something in reserve for the end."
Vasser used that strategy last season to finish third. But he admits a lot of the decisions at Long beach are dictated by the race.
"It's a gut thing," he said. "You have to see what happens on the track and really trust the calls that your crew makes."
It is the long bending pit road, adjacent to Shoreline, that has provided more than its fair share of excitement. In the late 1980s, Al Unser Jr. coaxed a right rear tire through two pit stops after his crew discovered they could not remove the wheel nut. With Rick Galles working the radio, Unser kept focus and took the win.
In the same era, Emerson Fittipaldi and Michael Andretti collided on pit road, launching both cars into the air. Both retired with damage after contending for the victory and thus was born the legend of pit road calamity.
Last season, on lap 111, Tracy and Andretti repeated that famed air show. Both pitted under caution and, when Andretti swung out of the pits abruptly, Tracy hit Andretti´s rear wheel.
"My car went straight up in the air, but luckily it came down flat," Tracy said. "It was pretty lucky that nothing was damaged."
It's not just the on-track and pit road scuffles that earn the Long Beach Grand Prix its solid reputation. It's the atmosphere, the setting and, of course, Hollywood's beautiful people. Some 100,000 fans swell the stands surrounding the course. A celebrity race turns out TV and movie stars. The Baldwin brothers, Jason Priestley and Jason Bateman have all run in the event. This year the roster includes William Shatner, James Brolin and David Allen Grier.
Without question, it is America's Biggest Beach Party. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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