Photo: Brian Redman winning the first long Beach race in Formula 5000

Fog is lifting and the SRO series just completed practice 1. IMSA takes the track to begin a very busy day for them with practice 1 at 9 AM Pacific time.

IndyCar Practice is at 3 PM Pacific/6 PM Eastern on FS1.

IMSA qualifying is at 5:10 Pacific time.

I am really excited to see the historic cars on track later this morning, and the display featuring Brian Radman’s Formula 500 car, which won the first race held at Long Beach in 1975. Formula 5000 is a series that I never had a chance to witness live.

I did not think the city of Long Beach could do any more to embrace this event than what I saw on my first two trips here, but walking around yesterday I there seemed to many more businesses than I remembered displaying checkered flags and banners.

It is a remarkable achievement for a city to continue a street race for 50 years, through changes in city council membership and mayors. Long Beach loves this event as much as Indianapolis loves the 500. I remember on my first visit here how shocked I was when the agent at the rental car center knew about the race. This the only place where that has happened.

I will be back in a bit before IndyCar practice and then have a practice wrapup.