It’s a wrap on the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach — and it once again proved thrilling for racing fans and party-lovers alike.
The three-day party by the beach that took over the city’s downtown drew close to 200,000 spectators from around the globe over the weekend.
And the good-times crescendoed on Sunday, April 16. Visitors enjoyed the second Historic F1 Challenge Race of the weekend, an exotic car parade and — as had been the case the previous two days — plenty of diverse food options, an eclectic array of retailers at the Lifestyle Expo, adult beverages at a couple of party spots and, for those with kids, age-appropriate activities at the Family Fun Zone.
But all of the Grand Prix’s other offerings faded into the background as the clock neared 12:45 p.m. Sunday — the start time for the titular IndyCar Series race.
Thousands migrated from the Grand Prix’s central hub at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center to the street circuit. Those with reserved seats flocked to the grandstands — while others ran to the general admission viewing areas along Pine Avenue, hoping to catch a glimpse of the racing machines flashing by at speeds of 180 mph and higher.
Rubber burned. Engines screeched. Onlookers whipped their heads side-to-side in a futile effort to keep their eyes on the leaders — with Kyle Kirkwood, a 24-year-old Floridian, taking the title — as the Southern California sun beat down, raising the track’s temperature on the asphalt to more than 110 degrees.
Some watched from big screens inside the Convention Center. Others took refuge from the heat, and scored a front row seat to the IndyCar Series race, on the lower levels of a parking lot facing Seaside Way. Others had a birds-eye view from the balconies of their apartments along Ocean Boulevard.
About two hours later and 85 laps later, the race — which had a turbulent start, with Hélio Castroneves crashing ont he first turn of the first lap, preceding several other odd moments in the early going — and the race was over. Kirkwood, AutoNation and Andretti Autosport’s No. 27 driver, took the checkered flag and drove into Victory Lane.
It was his first ever IndyCar win.
When Kirkwood made it to Victory Lane, he stepped out of his vehicle, confetti was launched into the air, and he celebrated his first IndyCar win by rasing his arms to the millions of viewers watching in-person and at home.
“My first win in Long Beach — it’s incredible,” Kirkwood told reporters shortly after the race. “I know I’m going to cherish this day.
“I was trying to hold tears back in the car which is something I’ve never really felt before,” Kirkwood added. “Today was the first time I was able to soak it in and acknowledge that I’ve done something incredible.”
All in all, it was a poignant end to another exciting Grand Prix weekend in Long Beach.
“Racing is everything to me,” Racing fan Louie Linares said after the Grand Prix finished up on Sunday. “I raced motocross for 27 years — and so racing has always been a part of my life. I love seeing people go full throttle, like we just did.”
Linares said he’s no stranger to the Grand Prix — with 2023 marking his ninth year attending the event. But years ago, he and his wife, Kelly, were among the lucky few with a front row seat to the show from their high rise apartment on Ocean Boulevard.
“It was so great,” Kelly Linares said. “We would throw all kinds of parties.”
But there’s nothing, Louie Linares said, quite like getting up close and personal to the IndyCar Series.
“This is probably the best circuit for drivers,” he said. “They can go so fast — as fast as they can possibly go.”
Racing is also a passion for Brigitte DeLaura, who has often celebrated her birthday in tandem with the Grand Prix.
“It’s one of my favorite sports, and I have been coming here from my teens,” she said. “And every year, it’s close to my birthday time, so it’s always a really special time for me.
Growing up, I wanted to be some kind of a race driver,” DeLaura added. “I just love cars. I love motorcycles. So this has always attracted me to being here a lot.”
But this year may be even more special. This weekend, DeLaura her wife, Tania, to the Grand Prix for the first time. The pair married two years ago.
“It’s nice to see you smile so much, so I like it,” Tania DeLaura told Brigette DeLaura.
But for others, like Steve and Dana Tavarez, its not necessarily the racing that attracts them to the Grand Prix every year.
The pair have been coming to the Grand Prix for decades — since at least 1983. And though they aren’t die hard motorsports fans — keeping up with a variety of series, including NASCAR, only semi-regularly — they’re brought back each year by the community and the chance to make new memories with people they care about.
“The crowd is mellow and cool, and everybody’s so nice,” Dana Tavarez said on Sunday. “It represents Long Beach really well.”
And if the first weekend of Coachella hadn’t fallen on the same weekend as the Grand Prix, Steve Tavarez said, their daughter would have accompanied them to the event — as she’d done for years.
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“Part of the joy of (the Grand Prix) was introducing the kids to the races when they were young,” Steve said. “My two nephews are here with their Dad, who we used to bring when they were little tykes. That’s the other part of the fun, bringing the kids here.”
They weren’t the only ones who used the experience as a family-bonding opportunity. Thousands of other families — with children ranging from newborns to teenagers — descended on downtown to partake in the joys of race culture with one another over the weekend.
For the Tavarez’s, though, the Grand Prix has also been a way to watch Long Beach — and the event itself — develop.
“Just the whole perspective of watching the race grow,” Steve Tavarez said.
Everything from the cars racing in the the Long Beach Grand Prix to the city’s downtown skyscape have all changed in the past decade, he said. As have the crowds.
“To see the diversity of fans now,” he added. “I’ve seen that change and I think its great.”
The whole event, Steve Tavarez said, and what it offers — from a thrilling IndyCar Series race to hundreds of retailers at the Lifestyle Expo to sweet and refreshing aquas frescas — are just too much to resist when ithe Grand Prix comes around each April.
And the Tavarez’s will, no doubt, be back again next year — alongside thousands of other racing revelers.
“It’s just one of the jewels of Long Beach,” he said.
Staff writer Teresa Liu contributed to this report.