The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, the city’s annual racing spectacle that takes over the city’s downtown streets for three days, finished up its 48th — and most successful iteration yet, organizers say — on Sunday, April 16, without a hitch.
This year’s event, which kicked off on Friday, April 14, drew more than 192,000 spectators, according to Grand Prix Association of Long Beach CEO and President Jim Michaelian.
That’s a record for the modern era, he said, topping the Grand Prix’s previous high-water mark in 2008.
“We did sell out our grandstands this year completely by Saturday night — only general admission tickets were available by Sunday morning,” Michaelian said in a Monday, April 14, interview, “which emphasizes the fact that the interest in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach still remains, and is growing.”
Those hundreds of thousands of race lovers — and casual Grand Prix attendees alike — converged upon the street circuit on Sunday to catch a glimpse of the titular NTT IndyCar race, third stop in this year’s open-wheel series.
“We had perfect weather,” Michaelian said. “Yesterday morning, it started a little overcast — but fortunately for us and for our fans here, the clouds parted and the sun broke through right at noon time, which happened to coincide with the start of our three hour NBC broadcast the IndyCar race.”
And 85 laps later, the race — which had a unexpectedly turbulent start, with veteran Hélio Castroneves crashing on the first turn of the Lap One — was over.
But amid the myriad mishaps of his Sunday foes, 24-year-old Florida native Kyle Kirkwood, at the helm of the AutoNation/Andretti Autosports pink no. 27 car, was pretty much flawless.
After rocky results in his first two races of the season and a disappointing rookie campaign, it was already clear that things were looking up for Kirkwood on Saturday, as he snagged the pole position with a late burst of speed during the final few…
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