Long Beach Grand Prix has party mood, but racing there is no day at the beach - MotorSportsTalk

Drivers in the Verizon IndyCar Series love traveling to Southern California for the annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

They can let down their hair, and like the Beach Boys sang in Surfin’ USA, you might even see a few drivers “wearing their baggies (shorts), Huarachi sandals, too” when they’re not in their race cars.

“It’s like a big party at the beach,” said 1999 TGPLB winner Juan Pablo Montoya.

But the 1.968-mile, 11-turn race contested on a temporary street course that abuts part of the Pacific Ocean shoreline will not be a day at the beach by any means.

Scott Dixon won last year’s 80-lap, 157.44-mile event for the first time in his career, eventually capturing the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series championship, while former TGPLB winner Helio Castroneves started from the pole with a record-setting speed of 106.331 mph.

Dixon is looking to make it two wins in a row not only at Long Beach but also in the early part of the 2016 season, having won two weeks ago at Phoenix.

“Long Beach has such an amazing history,” Dixon said. “It’s a truly iconic American event that started gaining a lot of popularity with Formula One back in the day.

“With the layout of the track, it’s truly one of the best street circuits anywhere around, and more importantly you actually get to race there. It took me forever to get to victory lane there, but we managed to accomplish that last year and I hope we can return to that form again this year.”

Sebastien Bourdais is a three-time winner (2005-2007) at Long Beach, while Will Power is a two-time winner (2008, 2012) there. They are the only active multi-race winners in Sunday’s race.

“It is a great event because of the atmosphere,” Bourdais said. “Next to the Indy 500, it is the premier event on our schedule.”

Other former TGPLB winners in the field are Juan Pablo Montoya (1999), Helio Castroneves (2001), Ryan Hunter-Reay (2010), Takuma Sato (2013) and Dixon (2015).

“It’s always a lot of fun racing in Long Beach,” Castroneves said. “It’s incredible that this will be 42 years that this event is here. There’s so much tradition and history with this race and it’s a pretty special event to have on our Verizon IndyCar Series calendar every year.

“I remember when we won at Long Beach in 2001. That was awesome and we’ve been close a few other times, including last year when we won the pole and finished second. We will be looking for our first win of 2016 on Sunday in the No. 3 Auto Club of Southern California Chevy and Long Beach will be a great place to do it.”

Added Sato, “Long Beach is always a special place for me. I simply love the venue, atmosphere, great restaurants, enthusiastic fans and, of course, I enjoy driving the track so much. It holds an incredible memory for me (2013 win), so I am looking forward to going back there very much.”

Montoya laments that it has been 17 years since his lone win at Long Beach. He’s ready to break that winless streak Sunday.

“That’s been a long time,” Montoya said. We’ve been pretty strong there the last couple of years, running in the top five, and hopefully we’ll be in a good position to continue that this weekend.

“We always get a great crowd at Long Beach – it’s one of the best atmospheres for racing that we have in the Verizon IndyCar Series. … I’m hoping we’ll have good reason to celebrate with everyone on Sunday after the race.”

James Hinchcliffe is looking forward to returning to Long Beach not only because of the atmosphere, but he’s hoping it brings a turnaround to what has started out as a tough season.

“Long Beach is one of the best events on the calendar,” Hinchcliffe said. “There’s a reason it’s been around more than 40 years. The track, the city, the events around town, they’re all great.

“Long Beach has been nice to me in the past, so hopefully we can have a solid weekend there after a few tough events and really kick off the season.”

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(Editor’s note: This story on the Heart of Racing sports cars shootout for women is one in an occasional Motorsports Talk series focusing on women in racing during March, which is Women’s History Month.)

Heart of Racing driver and team manager Ian James says his daughter, Gabby, isn’t so interested in auto racing. But she is interested (as a New York-based journalist) in writing about the sport’s efforts and growth in gender equality

It’s a topic that also was brought up by James’ wife, Kim.

“They’re always saying, ‘Hey, you manage all these guys, and you help them, so why not a woman?’ ” Ian James told NBC Sports. “And I feel like there are a lot of women that haven’t had a fair crack at it in sports car racing.

“Our whole DNA at Heart of Racing is we give people opportunities in all types of situations where there’s been crew personnel or drivers. And I felt like we hadn’t really addressed the female driver situation. I felt like there was a void to give somebody a chance to really prove themselves.”

During the offseason, the team took a major step toward remedying that.

*Hannah Grisham at the Heart of Racing shootout (Mike Levitt/LAT)*

Heart of Racing held its first female driver shootout last November at the APEX Motor Club in Phoenix, Arizona, to select two women who will co-drive an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the SRO SprintX Championship.

The season will begin this weekend at Sonoma Raceway with Hannah Grisham and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt behind the wheel. The team also picked a third driver, 17-year-old Annie Rhule, for a 2023 testing program.

The Phoenix audition included 10 finalists who were selected from 130 applicants to the program, which has been fully underwritten by Heart of Racing’s sponsors.

“We didn’t want it to be someone who just comes from a socio-economic background that could afford to do it on their own course,” James said. “We can pick on pure talent. We’re committed to three years to do this and see if we can find the right person. I’m very hopeful.”

So is Grisham, a Southern California native who has been racing since she was 6 in go-karts and since has won championships in Mazda and Miata ladder series. She has several victories in the World Racing League GP2 (an amateur sports car endurance series). The last two years, Grisham has worked as a test driver for the Pirelli tire company (she lives near Pirelli’s U.S. headquarters in Rome, Georgia, and tests about 30 times a year).

Starting with the Sonoma during SprintX event weekends (which feature races Saturday and Sunday), she will split the Heart of Racing car with O’Meara-Hunt (a New Zealand native she got to know at the shootout).

“It’s huge; the biggest opportunity I’ve had in this sport,” Grisham, 23, told NBC Sports. “Now it’s up to me to perform how I know I can. But I’m super lucky to be with such an amazing team and have a good teammate. The Heart of Racing has a family vibe and energy to it that’s really amazing. It’s super exciting. It’s hard to put into words.”

Grisham is hopeful that a strong performance eventually could lead to a full-time ride with Heart of Racing. The team has full-time entries in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and won the GTD category of the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona with the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 piloted by James, Darren Turner, Roman DeAngelis and Marco Sorensen.

James said “there’s no guarantee” of placement in an IMSA entry for Grisham and O’Meara-Hunt, but “if they prove themselves, we’ll continue to help them throughout their career and our team. The GT3 program is an obvious home for that. If they get the opportunity and don’t quite make it, we’ll be looking for the next two. The next three years, we’ll cycle through drivers until we find the right one.”

Grisham described the two-day shootout as a friendly but intense environment. After a day of getting acclimated to their cars, drivers qualified on new tires the second day and then did two 25-minute stints to simulate a race.

*Hannah Grisham reviews data with Heart of Racing sports car driver Gray Newell during the team’s shootout last November (Mike Levitt/LAT).*

“Everyone was super nice,” she said. “Once everyone gets in the car, it’s a different level. A different switch gets turned on. Everyone was super nice; everyone was quick. I feel we had an adequate amount of seat time, which is definitely helpful.

“It’s always cool to meet more women in the sport because there’s not too many of us, even though there’s more and more. It’s always cool to meet really talented women, especially there were so many from all over the world.”

IMSA has celebrated female champions and race winners, notably Katherine Legge (who is running GTD full time this season with Sheena Monk for Gradient Racing). The field at Sebring and Daytona also included the Iron Dames Lamborghini (a female-dominated team).

*The Heart of Racing’s female driver shootout drew interested candidates from around the world (Mike Levitt/LAT).*

James believes “a breakout female driver will be competing with the best of them” in the next five years as gender barriers slowly recede in motorsports.

“It’s been a male-dominated sport,” James said. “It’s still a very minute number of women drivers compared to the guys. I’m sure back in the day there were physical hurdles about it that were judged. But now the cars are not very physical to drive, and it’s more about technique and mental strength and stuff like that, and there’s no reason a girl shouldn’t do just as well as a guy. What we’re just trying to achieve is that there isn’t an obvious barrier to saying ‘Hey, I can’t hire a guy or a girl.’ We just want to put girls in front of people and our own program that are legitimate choices going forward for people.”

“There’s been some really good female drivers, but a lot of them just haven’t been able to sustain it, and a lot of that comes from sponsorship. I think (with the shootout), there’s no pressure of raising money and worrying about crash damage. We’ve taken care of all that so they can really focus on the job at hand.”

Funding always has been a hurdle for Grisham, who caught the racing bug from her father, Tom, an off-road driver who raced the Baja 1000 several times.

“I don’t come from a lot of money by any means,” she said. “So since a young age, I’ve always had to find sponsorships and get people to help me, whether it was buying tires, paying for entry fees, paying for the shipment of a car to an actual race. Literally knocking on the doors of people or businesses in my town.

“So yeah, it’s definitely something I’ve always struggled with and held me back because the sport revolves so much around money. So again to get this opportunity is insane.”

*Rianna O’Meara-Hunt was one of two women selected by the Heart of Racing to drive in the SRO SprintX Championship this year (Mike Levitt/LAT).*

Grisham credits racing pioneer Lyn St. James (an Indy 500 veteran and sports car champion) as a role model who has helped propel her career. She was hooked by the sights, smells and sounds of racing but also its competitive fire.

“There’s a zone you get in, that subconscious state of mind when you’re driving. It’s like addictive almost. I love it. Also I’m just a very competitive person as I think most race car drivers are.

“For sure I want to stay with the Heart of Racing. Obviously, I’m still getting to know everyone, but it’s a super family vibe. That’s how I grew up in the sport with just my dad and I wrenching on the cars. That’s what I love about this sport is all the amazing people you meet. And I think this is one of the most promising teams in this country. For sure, I want to learn as much as I can from them and hopefully continue. I feel so lucky and grateful to be one of those chosen.”