A Race to the Finish

After 30 years as America’s premier street race, the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach is at a crossroads. Through Formula 5000, Formula One, CART and now Champ Car, it became a happening, the world’s fastest beach party, drawing huge crowds to the seaside course.

Always, its anchor has been a major league race.

Champ Car will anchor Sunday’s 31st LBGP, but in essence, the 2-year-old sanctioning body, successor to CART, will be auditioning. This is the final year of a five-year contract with the Grand Prix Assn. of Long Beach and Dover Motorsports Inc. of Delaware, owner of the Long Beach race. It is also the final year of Toyota’s contract as title sponsor.

“There is one thing of which there is no doubt, and that is that there will be a race Sunday, and there will be a race next year,” said Jim Michaelian, president of the LBGP. “Our contract with the city of Long Beach for a race extends to 2010.

“I think you can be pretty sure that Toyota will be here too. We have too much invested in each other not to stick together. Their pro-celebrity race on Saturday is the gold standard for similar events worldwide.”

Just to make sure there is enough for everyone to see and do this weekend, Michaelian has included exhibitions of drifting, extreme motorcycle jumping, participatory kart racing and rock concerts.

The speculation is about the main event next year.

“I hate to hear talk about 2006 and beyond because it detracts from the job at hand, and that’s to put on the best open-wheel, open-cockpit race in the world on Sunday,” Michaelian said. “Champ Car came through under worse conditions last year, after CART collapsed, so let’s see what they do this time.” Nevertheless, speculation persists, and even Michaelian says there are ways in which Champ Car needs to change.

“First off, their season starts way too late,” he said, his race being Champ Car’s opener. “Fans need to become emotionally involved, and to do that they need someone to follow. With no [previous] races, there are no Champ Car drivers to follow. By the time we open the season, NASCAR will have had five [Nextel] Cup races, and the IRL, the NHRA and both sports car organizations at least three races each.

“We’re like an island in the schedule.... After Sunday, it’s five weeks to the next race in Mexico and two more weeks before they race again in the U.S. How can you build up any interest with continuity like that? How can fans identify with new drivers if they aren’t racing?”

Among Champ Car’s new drivers are Bjorn Wirdheim of Sweden, Ronnie Bremer of Denmark, Marcus Marshall of Australia, Timo Glock of Germany and Andrew Ranger of Canada, all of whom are entered in Sunday’s race. Last year’s series champion, Sebastien Bourdais of France, is back, along with regulars Paul Tracy, the defending race champion, Jimmy Vasser, Bruno Junqueira and A.J. Allmendinger. Michaelian said that at least 18 cars would start.

Michaelian, 62, has been part of the Long Beach race since the day Chris Pook startled the sporting world with the announcement that he would promote a race through the streets of downtown Long Beach in 1975.

“When I heard that some Englishman with a travel agency was going to put on a race, I called Pook and told him there was no way that there could be a race in my town without me being part of it,” said Michaelian, a 1964 graduate of UCLA and a racing enthusiast. “He hired me officially as controller, but there were only five or six of us in the operation and we all did what had to be done.’”

The Grand Prix staff now numbers 25 full time, with another 25 part timers for the race.

Pook, who ran the Grand Prix until he resigned in 2002 in an unsuccessful attempt to save CART, often said that, “I had the dream and the vision, but Michaelian is the glue who held it together. Without him I don’t know if we would have made it.”

Pook is no longer involved with the Grand Prix Assn., although he remains part of the Long Beach scene, having been awarded a $40,000 consultant’s job for the city’s annual International Sea Festival.

“I had grown up in Long Beach and I had a passion for racing, so it seemed like the perfect setup for me,” Michaelian said. “I’ve been blessed to have an opportunity to do what I love in a business climate in a city I love. I just want to keep that going.”

Pressed to explain how he would keep it going, Michaelian said there were several possibilities, but because of this week’s race he would not elaborate.

Racing observers are feeling no such compunctions.

There is always the possibility that Champ Car will remain. If that doesn’t happen, though, there is the rival Indy Racing League. Some say that the IRL street race last Sunday in St. Petersburg, Fla., the first non-oval race in IRL history, was really a dry run to prepare for Long Beach. IRL founder Tony George has always said that he would like to fit a good street race into his oval schedule, and there’s no better street race than Long Beach.

It doesn’t hurt, either, that Toyota has a strong presence in the IRL as an engine manufacturer.

Then there are the sports car organizations, Grand American and the American LeMans. Both put on exciting races, such as the one last Sunday at California Speedway where 45 cars started the Grand American race.

NASCAR? Outrageous as it might sound, the idea of Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. & co. thundering down Shoreline Drive in their Nextel Cup cars is no more outlandish than was the thought of Formula Ones screaming down Ocean Boulevard in 1975.

A more likely NASCAR scenario would be a truck race. Toyota is part of the Craftsman Truck series, and the trucks have a history of racing on road and street courses.

Adam Saal, Grand American director of communications, probably could have been speaking for them all when he said, “I can’t think of any series that wouldn’t want to be part of the premier street race in the country, but I want to make it clear we have not had any official discussions with the Long Beach organizers and respect the fact that their main area of focus is on [this weekend’s] Grand Prix. If an opportunity presents itself to sit down and have a discussion after this year’s race, we would welcome it.”

As the longtime sponsor, Toyota is sure to have some say in what happens.

“We’ll wait to hear back from Dover, and listen to what Jim Michaelian has to say, and then we’ll sit down and see what they decide,” said Les Unger, Toyota motorsports marketing director. “As sponsors we might make a recommendation, but it’s their decision. The event is important to us ... and the race gives us invaluable exposure on TV and in the media. We certainly want to stay involved.”