LONG BEACH — Colton Herta took a seat in the VIP tent Tuesday at media day for the 50th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, which will take place April 13. This is Herta’s hometown race, as he hails from Santa Clarita, so one can image how excited he might have been when he won here in 2021.
Not so fast.
Yes, Herta won. But he didn’t get to enjoy it as much as he might have because so much of the attention was on Alex Palou clinching the NTT IndyCar series championship with a fourth-place finish that day.
The Grand Prix of Long Beach is always early in the season in April. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which canceled the 2020 race and forced the circuit to adjust the schedule for 2021, it ended up as the season finale in late September that year.
As Herta was reminded of that Tuesday, he just kind of smiled wryly.
“I’ve gotten used to that,” said Herta, 25. “I’ve actually done it three times in my career now where I’ve won the last race in the series. I’ve done it once in Laguna (Seca), once in Nashville and once here, so I’m used to that. And it should be that way.
“If you win the championship, it should be the biggest deal at the end of the race.”
That doesn’t make it any easier to take.
“I’ve said it many times, it’s like the worst race to win, is the last race of the year because you do get overshadowed with the champion,” Herta said. “But, rightfully so.”
Even so, it was cool to win.
“It was an important day for me in 2021 here,” said Herta, whose father Bryan raced here many times. “It was one that I will never forget.”
Indeed, he’d love to win here when the race is not the season finale. In normal fashion, if you will. Like say, April 13.
“It would be amazing,” Herta said. “We have the cars to do it, we have the team to do it. We’ve shown that throughout the years. Finished second last year. Came close.”
Scott Dixon won last year with a two-stop strategy, which means there was always a chance he would run out of gas.
“With Scott Dixon saving a lot of fuel at the end of the race, I thought I might be able to get him,” Herta said. “Unfortunately, it never came to fruition. But still happy to be on the podium and I want to replicate that. Obviously, I want to win but at the very least I want to be on the podium here in Long Beach.”
MICHAELIAN THRILLED ABOUT FOX
Jim Michaelian, the longtime CEO of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach, is more than a bit happy that IndyCar races are now being televised by Fox. In recent years, the Grand Prix of Long Beach has been televised by either NBC or one of its arms, such as NBC Sports Network or USA Network.
“The capability of having Fox cover the IndyCar series, flag, the beginning, to the very end, 17 consecutive races all on network is a remarkable achievement for IndyCar and they should be congratulated for that,” Michaelian said. “In this day and age when everybody’s TV rights are bifurcated up and split among cable and streaming and network, they managed to get it all on network, all of the races.
“And that’s a big deal because you get the continuity and you get the promotability of the next race and of the series and of the Indy 500, etc. So to us, that really is a substantial improvement in what IndyCar as a sanctioning body has to offer to the promoters.”