The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach set an all-time attendance record in 2024, and with the downtown city event swelled to capacity last weekend for its 50th anniversary, another record is expected to be set.
“We’re still waiting to get the final tally on walk-up ticket sales, but we expect the number to surpass the record 194,000 people we had last year for the 49th,” Grand Prix Association of Long Beach president Jim Michaelian told RACER.
The 50th running was also the first for the grand prix under its new owners at Penske Entertainment, which purchased the rights to hold the famous street race late last year. With newfound insights into how the event is run by Michaelian’s team, which was retained by Penske, and the depths of entertainment it offers through IndyCar, IMSA, SRO, Stadium Super Trucks, Formula Drift and historic racing, Penske Corporation president Bud Denker left the track in awe of all he witnessed from the inside.
“This is my 19th year going there, and now it’s very different from a promoter standpoint for me,” Denker told RACER. “To see the people lined up along the fence in front of the grandstands, three or four deep, just light up… They were along the fence because general admission tickets were all we had left; they couldn’t get a seat because every seat was sold.
“The demographics too, the younger audience, obviously cross-generational, but also across all ethnicities, with a heavy Hispanic presence, which the market represents.
Penske Entertainment’s Denker sees opportunities for events like Detroit to incorporate some of Long Beach’s festival-style elements. Chris Owens/IMS Photo
“I used to think maybe they had too much stuff going on at that track. Every minute, there’s something filling up the track. But it works there, because it’s just working that subculture; the car cultures and the drifting every night. It was incredible. I’d never seen drifting in my life until I went over there at night, and they’re under the lights. They’re having a party. The grandstands are full.”
Denker has been in charge of running Penske’s Detroit Grand Prix and is centrally involved in similar ways with the Iowa Speedway doubleheader and the upcoming Arlington Grand Prix in 2026. The three-day-long beach party he just experienced is expected to influence how some of the other races under Penske’s care will look in the future.
“They created this great festival event,” Denker said. “There’s music, DJs in front of the convention center, people dancing around, and at every junction, there was something going on to create things for people to do. All those little bars they have, and food trucks, and the festival nature of it that you always want.
“The other part of it for Detroit is, well, Long Beach has five or six different series competing there. And that really works there. Now Detroit, the problem we have is we don’t have any paddock space to hold that many series. But it’s given us a lot to think about because some of the other series, the stadium trucks, or the SRO cars, or the drifting, those bring a lot of different ages of people that really have a chance to see things they haven’t seen before, especially in Detroit.”
With the November purchase of the grand prix and preparations for 2025 well under way, Penske Entertainment left the 50th anniversary event in the hands of Michaelian. Given a full year to apply some of Penske’s polish and upgrades, Denker expects the 51st running of the Long Beach Grand Prix to feature the same high-level oversight from the GPALB team along with some new looks to the venue.
“It’s got a great foundation. It really does there, and we have some ideas there,” he said. “We’re going to invest there in some areas. The last thing I was going to do is jump into their world and upset it. And the coming-together with Jim and everyone has been seamless. For next year, I hope to help him more by investing in some of the areas, and we’re going to do that because, man, they’ve always said Long Beach is this gem, the biggest event after the Indianapolis 500, and you saw it this weekend. It is so true.”
