Epic historic open-wheel field set for Long Beach celebrations
Yesterday at 01:06 PM
Among the many celebrations planned for the Long Beach Grand Prix's 50th anniversary, the loudest and coolest just might be the two practice sessions and two races run by the Historic Motor Sports Association featuring the three eras of open-wheel cars that made the street race into a fixture of Southern Californian life.
Created by Chris Pook and Dan Gurney, the inaugural event was run in 1975 featuring Formula 5000 cars and their bellowing five-liter V8 engines. Formula 1 took over in 1976 and raced on the downtown streets through 1983, and in 1984, the CART IndyCar Series became the headliner at the Long Beach Grand Prix and forge the tradition that continues today.
And that's what the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach and HMSA have used as the core for the April 11-13 tribute to its fans with F5000 cars, F1 cars, and Indy cars in a run group that boasts 29 entries.
In F5000, seven cars, including the 1975 Eagle owned by Tom Malloy that Gurney used to turn the first laps on the new circuit, and the 1975 Lola Brian Redman used to win the first Long Beach GP, will appear.
In F1, 16 cars signed up to participate, with 11 hailing from the 1976-1983 Long Beach years. The oldest is a 1972 BRM P160, the newest is an '83 Tyrrell 011b, and among the marques, the single BRM, five Marchs, one Lotus, one McLaren, one Parnelli, four Shadows, and three Tyrrells will load into the Long Beach Convention Center where the HMSA paddock is located in the heart of the venue.
And among the AAA, USAC, CART, and Champ Car entries, six cars, ranging from a 1966 Eagle driven by former F1 and IndyCar ace Stefan Johansson (pictured above), to Sebastien Bourdais' 2007 Long Beach-winning Newman/Haas Racing Panoz DP01 driven by AO Racing IMSA team owner/driver PJ Hyett, will sing through the city.
Although he was invited to drive the car owned by Erich Joiner, Los Angeles local Bryan Herta opted against climbing into his 1999 Team Rahal Reynard in order to focus on getting his Andretti Global driver Kyle Kirkwood back into victory lane.
Joiner, who loaned an engine to Herta in 2023 so he could drive the 1998 Rahal Reynard gifted to him by his son Colton, will strap in and put the Cosworth turbo V8 to good use throughout the weekend.
