The start of the 2025 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
(Photo: Chris Owens/Penske Entertainment)

Upon Further Review: A Modest Solution to Long Beach’s Biggest On-Track Problem

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It’s not exactly a hot take to say that Long Beach is the second most prestigious race on the NTT IndyCar Series calendar. The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is the second-longest-running street race in North America after Trois-Rivieres and helped completely change the image of Long Beach, California, after its initial running as a Formula 5000 race in 1975, followed by Formula 1 from 1976-1983.

IndyCar in its various guises has been the primary series around the 11-turn, 1.968-mile street circuit since 1984, starting with CART, then the Champ Car World Series, now the NTT IndyCar Series, with the list of winners reading like a who’s who of open-wheel history.

On Sunday, Kyle Kirkwood became a two-time Long Beach winner, joining Mario Andretti, Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr., Alex Zanardi, Paul Tracy, Sebastien Bourdais, Will Power, Mike Conway, Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi as multi-time race winners at Long Beach.

The fanfare was tremendous. Grand Prix officials said that all reserved seating for Saturday and Sunday were sold out, with race day being sold out for the third year in a row. The grandstands were packed. The grid was packed. Everyone was ready to see the 50th race around the streets of Long Beach get underway with much fanfare.

Instead, like most other Long Beach starts, the race began with a whimper. At most, only four rows were lined up before the field got to the starting line.

This isn’t new to Long Beach as it’s been a problem for several years.

For such a picturesque race at a picturesque venue with grandstands jammed with people, the fans, drivers, teams and series deserve a much better looking start of the race.

With only a handful of rows lined up and the rest of the field strung out, there are some drivers that are probably barely approaching the start/finish line as the leaders approach the first turn.

It’s monumentally unfair to those at the back of the pack that they are starting at such a disadvantage to the front of the field because there isn’t enough time to get everybody lined up in a proper grid formation before the start of the race.

There is a solution to this problem, however, and it comes thanks to a change from last season.

With the introduction of the hybrid engine components that began last summer at Mid-Ohio, the drivers began to have the ability to start the cars themselves and get underway in case something unforeseen happened, such as the engine stalling following a spin.

Why not showcase that technology further with a return to standing starts at Long Beach? Using a standing start at Long Beach and nowhere else will help make that race more unique on the schedule. It gives drivers another skill they can use to gain an advantage over their competitors and it also provides a much fairer system for drivers in the back half of the field.

Standing starts have been used at Long Beach before. Every Formula 1 race began with a standing start and Champ Car used a standing start at Long Beach in 2008 for their finale race.

IndyCar took over sanctioning of the Grand Prix of Long Beach starting in 2009 and went back to a rolling start. For the 2014 race, a standing start was implemented.

Besides James Hinchcliffe not getting the best start, it was a clean start and provided a much more exciting run to turn 1 compared to the normal rolling starts.

Yes, there are risks with a standing start. We saw the worst example at the 2014 Indianapolis Grand Prix when Sebastian Saavedra stalled, causing a multi-car pileup and a massive debris pile.

But let’s not act like rolling starts have a perfect safety record. We’ve seen crashes, flips and a whole host of interesting things happen when cars are moving toward the green flag.

A standing start at Long Beach won’t solve all the race’s issues. After the third round of pit stops, there wasn’t much action other than Christian Lundgaard‘s pass on Felix Rosenqvist.

TV ratings for the race weren’t very good, but that’s what happens when you’re against NASCAR head-to-head and one of the most competitive final rounds of The Masters.

But as for the on-track product, there’s an easy fix to an issue that’s been around going back several decades.

It’s lights out and away we go.

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Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.

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5 thoughts on “Upon Further Review: A Modest Solution to Long Beach’s Biggest On-Track Problem”

    1. its their fault for qualifying way back in the field.
    2. I think they hold back instead of lining up, because turns 1-3 are very narrow and there is a higher chance of contact if they’re side-by-side.

    • Turn 11 is so sharp and slow, I don’t think it’s scientifically possible to get the whole field through that turn and lined up side by side before the start line without purposely holding up the leaders in some manner.

      As Kevin mentioned, it just makes qualifying actually mean something to races in which starting in the back is such a huge disadvantage. Every competitor had the same opportunities, some did better than others and some may have just had plain bad luck. It’s just part of the game – somebody has to start back there.

  2. Simpler yet…move the start finish down Shoreline. It will give a chance for the field to get lined up and could possibly prevent chaos at turn 1 since they’ll be going a bit slower. I agree, all cars have the chance to start up front, BUT those that are starting in the back half of the field, shouldn’t be further penalized just because of where they start.

    • How about more viewing screens for the grand stands. It is very hard for the casual fan to follow a road course race. We sat in gs 31, could barely see the screen that is right of the start finish.

    • Asking because I don’t know… Is there a reason most tracks (all? I can’t think of any offhand that don’t) have the start/finish line somewhere in the vicinity of pit lane? If you move the start/finish at Long Beach far enough out to allow a proper starting line up, the line would probably be beyond the end of pit road. I’m not sure whether that is a big deal or not.

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