Long Beach Grand Prix

From the grassroots level to the fully sponsored, tuner-shop-backed 500-wheel-hp entries, time attack has exploded in popularity and speed. The concept of tuning a production compact into a blisteringly fast track machine, compromise be damned, has finally put backyard and garage tuners to the stopwatch test. Friendly rivalries have turned into bitter wars and minor builds have transformed into major overhauls in the name of creating the ultimate fast-lap phenom. So it came with little surprise (but huge excitement) when it was announced that the Super Lap Battle time attack series would be making an exhibition run at the 2008 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach or, as we call it, the Long Beach Grand Prix (LBGP). As a race that used to hold Formula One and now hosts the American Le Mans Series (ALMS), World Challenge and Champ Car, that's something to care about.

The average Sport Compact Car reader was almost a decade away from being born when the first Long Beach Grand Prix was run in 1975. So you probably missed all the Formula One races held there. And also the event's growth from odd idea into one of North America's signature motorsport events. Plus the parade of legendary drivers, all of whom left thick, black strips of rubber on the streets of Long Beach, California, before time attack even thought about rolling through the cement walls of the temporary street course. Time for a little history lesson.

1975Overshadowed by its neighbor, Los Angeles, Long Beach crept downhill after the end of World War II. Work at its massive naval yard dried up and the huge beachside Pike amusement park withered away in 1969, unable to compete with Disneyland. By the early 1970s, downtown Long Beach was full of aging, abandoned buildings. Theaters that once ran family movies stooped to showing smut.

Then, sometime during 1973, came a guy named Chris Pook. Born in Somerset, England, Pook was working as a travel agent in Long Beach when he decided that, underneath its grime, Long Beach was a potential Monte Carlo. And what Monte Carlo had that Long Beach didn't was a Formula One race. Backed by racing legend Dan Gurney and a core group of other Long Beach residents, Pook pushed the idea of staging a race on a street circuit

Getting the approval of the municipal government was tough, but attracting Formula One would be tougher. There was already a United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen every year and there was no guarantee that formula-type cars would work well on city streets. Pook had something to prove, which he did by staging a Formula 5000 race on September 28, 1975.

Formula 5000 cars were about the same size as the Formula One machines of the day, but powered by American-style 5.0-liter OHV V8s. Sanctioned by the SCCA, the Formula 5000 series attracted top talent like the Unser brothers (that's Al Sr. and Bobby) and Mario Andretti at a time when Indy cars ran strictly on ovals and, even then, not on a lot of them. Formula 5000 cars made a tremendous roar, were shockingly fast, and if they did well in Long Beach, there was no reason why F1 cars couldn't too.

The Formula One Years (1976-1983)Formula One from the mid-'70s to the early-'80s was in a sweet spot. Legends like Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter, Gilles Villeneuve, Ronnie Peterson and Clay Regazzoni were vivid characters. Car designers were at their most creative, with Ferrari running the gorgeous 312T models (powered by a flat 12), Colin Chapman revolutionized the sport with the innovation of ground-effect aerodynamics. And wacky experiments like the six-wheeled Tyrell P34 would spring up.