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As Acura Grand Prix Weekend Hits 50-Year Anniversary, Sports Cars Have Played a Large Role
April 1, 2025
By John Oreovicz IMSA Wire Service
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is celebrating its golden jubilee, with 50 years of racing history dating to the inaugural event staged for Formula 5000 cars in September 1975.
The Long Beach street circuit has evolved over the years, and so has the competitive lineup. The original F5000 race was organized as a test run to demonstrate that promoter Chris Pook and the seaside venue would be prepared to host a Formula 1 Grand Prix. That hurdle was cleared, and the United States Grand Prix West was run from 1976-83. When Pook could no longer afford the cost of F1, the CART-sanctioned Indy car championship took over as the Long Beach Grand Prix headliner.
These days, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the IndyCar Series share top billing at Long Beach, with IMSA’s 100-minute sprint race for the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) classes highlighting the Saturday schedule. This is the 21st time sports car racing has claimed an important place on the Long Beach card, dating to 1990, when IMSA’s sedan-based GTO and GTU (for engines 2.5-liter and smaller) classes hit the streets for 60 minutes of slam-bang action.
Here’s a brief look back at the Long Beach Grand Prix’s rich sports car history:
1990: The inaugural 60-minute Long Beach sports car race set a high bar to match (IMSA Archive Photo). Dorsey Schroeder lost the ‘doghouse’ (hood and front fenders) of his Roush Racing Mercury Cougar during a furious scrap with Pete Halsmer’s Mazda RX-7, but Schroeder still came back to pass Halsmer for the win. John Finger won GTU in a Mazda MX-6.
1991: Halsmer’s Mazda was again in the thick of things, this year fighting Robby Gordon in a Roush Ford Mustang. At one point, Gordon unintentionally tipped Halsmer into a spin on the back straight; Halsmer recovered and very intentionally drove into Gordon a few corners later. Steve Millen gratefully accepted the GTO win in his Nissan 300ZX, while John Fergus topped GTU in a Dodge Daytona. It’s worth seeking out the original broadcasts of these ‘90s races on YouTube because they are enhanced by the call of Bruce Flanders, the longtime PA voice of the Long Beach Grand Prix and Irwindale Speedway.
2006: Sports cars returned to Long Beach after a 15-year absence with a robust field of 26 Daytona Prototypes in what was then called the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series. Scott Pruett and Luis Diaz won a 90-minute contest in a Lexus-Riley for Chip Ganassi Racing. A then-rookie, Colin Braun, finished seventh and is still active today.
2007: The sports car race was extended to 100 minutes and was now part of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) championship. Long Beach was one of a handful of ALMS races where a competitor in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class took the overall victory over larger and generally faster LMP1 competition. Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard’s Penske Porsche RS Spyder led a total of six Porsche and Acura LMP2 cars ahead of the factory Audi LMP1 entries in seventh and ninth. GT racing returned, with Corvette Racing earning a 1-2 finish in GT1 and a Risi Competizione Ferrari grabbing the GT2 laurels.
2008: Audi rebounded with a 1-2 LMP1 and overall finish, with Scott Sharp and David Brabham prevailing for Acura over the victorious-in-’07 Penske Porsches in LMP2. Corvette Racing repeated its GT1 1-2, this year with the No. 3 entry ahead of the No. 4.
2009: Acura swept both overall and LMP1 (with Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud) and LMP2 (with Diaz and Adrian Fernandez) with two different types of chassis. Corvette triumphed again in GT1, while the Flying Lizard Porsche duo of Patrick Long and Jorg Bergmeister bested GT2.
2010: Pagenaud and Brabham combined to win the top class in a rebadged Honda Performance Development (HPD) P2-specification entry, courtesy of Pagenaud’s last lap pass on Fernandez. Bergmeister and Long repeated in a consolidated GT class, ahead of Corvette in second and local favorite Bill Auberlen third in a BMW Team RLL entry he shared with Tommy Milner.
2011: With the sports car race bumped up to a full two hours, Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr took the win in an Aston Martin-powered Lola LMP1. Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller won the combined GT class in a BMW, with Corvette second. Now AO Racing team principal, Gunnar Jeannette won his second straight Long Beach race in Prototype Challenge.
2012: Now driving an HPD LMP1, Graf and Luhr repeated their winning 2011 performance. Milner secured his first Long Beach win co-driving the No. 4 Corvette with Oliver Gavin, ahead of Hand and Mueller for BMW.
2013: In the final year for the two-hour format and for ALMS, the HPD LMP1 of Luhr and Graf completed a three-peat. Braun secured a class win in PC with Jon Bennett; BMW finished 1-2 in GT with Auberlen and Maxime Martin on top.
2014: Pruett and Memo Rojas in a Ganassi Riley-Ford won the IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship 100-minute sprint round. Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia captured the GTLM win in their No. 3 Corvette.
2015: The Taylor brothers (Ricky and Jordan) took the first of three straight overall Long Beach wins, guiding a Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette Daytona Prototype home first over Ganassi’s Pruett and Hand. BMW reclaimed the GTLM mantle, Auberlen and Dirk Werner ahead of the Risi Ferrari and No. 3 Corvette.
2016: Ricky and Jordan Taylor led a Corvette DP podium sweep in the rebranded IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Drama came in GTLM with Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet’s No. 911 Porsche emerging on top from a rough-and-tumble battle vs. Corvette.
2017: With a new car, the Taylor brothers remained invincible for the third year in a row, now driving the new Cadillac DPi-V.R Daytona Prototype international (DPi) entry. But last-lap hairpin drama promoted the No. 4 Corvette of Milner and Gavin to the GTLM win as the No. 3 car was stuck behind GTD cars that were stopped on course. Jeannette and Cooper MacNeil took a WeatherTech Mercedes-AMG GT3 to the GTD win.
2018: Back to a two-class DPi and GTLM format, Barbosa and Filipe Albuquerque took the overall win in the Action Express Racing-prepared, No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac. GTLM featured the same top two as in 2017, the No. 4 Corvette beating the No. 67 Ford.
2019: Albuquerque and Barbosa repeated in a Cadillac DPi, this time over the pair of Penske Acuras. Porsche won in GTLM with the emerging “BamThor” duo of Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor finishing ahead of the two Corvettes.
2021: The global pandemic created a 19-month gap between Long Beach races, with the ’21 event placed in September in a one-off reprise of the original 1975 date. General Motors had a banner day at the rebranded Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach event. Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr’s Whelen Cadillac led a Cadillac DPi podium sweep, while Corvette (led by Milner and Tandy) went 1-2 in the final GTLM street race. Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow kicked off a three-year GTD win streak in their Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini.
2022: One of the more memorable Long Beach sports car races, as Sebastien Bourdais spun out of the lead, but regained it within a few laps to win with Renger van der Zande in a 1-2 for Cadillac and Ganassi. Sellers and Snow doubled up in GTD, now in a PMR BMW and delivering the BMW M4 GT3 its first win, while Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas blitzed GTD PRO in their Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin.
2023: The first Long Beach in IMSA’s new GTP era saw tire strategy propel Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy to the win, the first for Porsche Penske Motorsport’s new Porsche 963, over the No. 25 BMW. Snow and Sellers completed their Long Beach three-peat in GTD while Vasser Sullivan Lexus kicked off a win streak of its own with Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat winning the most recent GTD PRO race on these streets.
2024: Bourdais and van der Zande reprised their 2022 win, their Cadillac now upgraded to a GTP-class V-Series.R. With GTD now the sole production-based class, Parker Thompson joined Barnicoat in a one-off No. 89 Lexus to commemorate the year the brand was launched in America to win this class.
