Déjà vu: 1970s Formula 1 Returns to Long Beach!

By Jake Grubb & Guy Motil

Marking 47-years, Formula 1 cars will return to the Long Beach Grand Prix this year! It was in April, 1976 that the likes of Ferrari, McLaren, Tyrell, Lotus and other great F1 teams descended from Europe upon the port city of Long Beach, California to inaugurate the first-ever Long Beach Grand Prix West. Originating from a bold idea of one Chris Pook, a British-come-Long Beach California travel agency owner and aircraft broker, his 1974 notion of staging a Grand Prix car race event on the streets of Long Beach found legs through a fluke. Pook’s idea was spurred when he learned that city leaders had committed to a billion-dollar Long Beach redevelopment program that was intended to revitalize the city with new building structures, powerhouse commerce and expansion tourism. As a Long Beach businessman, Chris Pook presented the idea of a Grand Prix event to the city council members with a simple pitch: “what better way to get international recognition than with a World Championship car race?”

Interest from the powers-that-be was immediate, and Pook’s idea became more than a notion. As a former racer, lifelong racing enthusiast and businessman with a sense of both domestic and international markets, Christopher Pook was armed with a plan that outlined funding, marketing, management and logistics. The city fathers were mesmerized. And Pook had a silver bullet: one Daniel Sexton Gurney. Chris Pook had earlier approached Dan Gurney with the idea of a southern California Grand Prix, modeled after the legendary Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix in Europe. Dan was quickly transfixed with the idea, having actually raced at Monaco and driven the world-class tracks of Europe for fifteen years in sports cars and Formula 1. As a native southern Californian, he embraced Pook’s idea fully, signing on to help make the project happen in every way that he could.

Once Dan Gurney was onboard and a principal in the effort, the project was presented for approval before the Long Beach city council to an affirmative vote of 7-0. Unanimous approval!

It was giant leap of faith – for the Long Beach city council and for the Pook/ Gurney super team. Therefore a business entity was quickly created, Grand Prix Racing Association, in which stock would be sold to qualified investors in order to accumulate Chris Pook’s initial projected budget of 1.2 million dollars to fully mount and operate the Long Beach Grand Prix. Roughly 30 investors would be needed. Dan Gurney became Director of Operations, Pook assumed the role of President, and then-Riverside Raceway’s well-respected Les Richter was appointed as Director of Racing.

During tours of Long Beach city streets with automotive journalists, Dan Gurney described the racecourse corner by corner, including hairpins, fast bends and elevation changes: “This will be the paddock,” he explained, “and over there is where the cars will enter the circuit.” Through intensive study of the Long Beach streetscape and countless drives down every section of what would become the racetrack, Gurney designed the course in real time, drawing on his vast well of experiences as a pro race driver at widely differing circuits on seven continents.

Ultimately, the finalized racetrack design for the Long Beach Grand Prix was brought to full fruition with the input and mastery of Giuseppe Bacciagaluppi, manager of the storied Monza circuit in Italy. Recognized as the world’s leading authority on racetrack construction and safety, Bacciagaluppi worked intensively with Dan Gurney and Long Beach city engineers to achieve the best possible result for drivers, race team needs and spectator appeal, with a core focus on safety. The outcome was a world-class street racing circuit that yielded average lap speeds of 90-95 mph, with a capacity for top speeds of 165-170 mph on straightaways and elongated bends. The final configuration was 2.32 miles in length with fifteen turns of every speed, pace and shape, with challenging elevation changes. At its highest point, the Hairpin, the track reached 39-feet above sea level, whereas the lowest portion was just 8-feet above sea level.

On a mid-winter day in 1975, a light blue AAR Jorgensen Gurney Eagle Formula 5000 car was quietly push-rolled to the pre-grid-to-be for the first-ever Long Beach Grand Prix. Walking beside the car were two men, both well-established legends of motor sport, who were about to have what for them would be a little fun, but what for ordinary mortals would cause acute nerve implosion.

Under the official imperative to conduct noise level tests of a high-powered race engine on the Long Beach racetrack at speed, the two sound testers would suit-up and each take turns driving the Gurney F5000 car nearly as fast as it would go on Long Beach’s Shoreline Drive curved straightaway. The two drivers: Bobby Unser and Dan Gurney himself. Needless to say, the two extended the length of the noise level test session as long as it could possibly be justified, to the delight of a select few onlookers who thrilled to the rapturous sound of a real live world class Formula 5000 racecar ground-pounding their town’s roadway, while each were rubbing their dancing eyes to confirm the reality of what they were truly witnessing. Both Gurney and Unser reached speeds of over 150 mph! More than a perfunctory noise test, this was an unofficial holy christening of the Long Beach Grand Prix racetrack, before its unveiling to the world at large.

The ensuing months brought forth an abundance of support from the motor sports world, including an agreement with FIA Formula 1 organizers that a USA west coast Formula 1 Grand Prix would be staged on the city of Long Beach race course in the spring of 1976. Incredibly, less than a year from the inception of their Grand Prix Racing Association, Chris Pook, Dan Gurney and Les Richter had secured two major races for Long Beach: an initial Formula 5000 Grand Prix for the fall of 1975, and an International Formula 1 Grand Prix for the spring of 1976!

After a spectacular and highly successful fall ’75 Formula 5000 race, consisting of top drivers from North American and Europe, Chris Pook, Dan Gurney, Les Richter and team knew for certain that they had hatched an authentic world class racing venue.

As the inaugural Formula 1 Long Beach Grand Prix race week neared, spectator pre-order ticket counts rose exponentially, until by Saturday’s qualifying heats the crowds approached estimates that were expected for actual race day levels. And they multiplied to exceed maximum seating capacities for race day. There were many surprises during the exciting qualifying laps that suggested hotly contested duels and dices to come with the wave of Sunday’s green flag.

On race day, after pre-race festivities and a half-day build-up of raw anticipation for racers, teams and spectators alike, the green flag waved to the cacophonous thunder of over twenty 700-horsepower multi-cylinder engines blasting off of the grid toward Turn 1 of the first-ever Long Beach Formula 1 Grand Prix!

Pole-sitter Clay Regazzoni rocketed to the lead in his Ferrari 312T over his team mate and then-championship points leader, Austrian driver Niki Lauda. Although Lauda and British driver James Hunt were locked in what would become an historic battle for the 1976 Formula 1 world championship, Regazzoni’s mastery of the bumpy and challenging Long Beach track was prodigious, spiriting him to an impressive lead. In a blistering race of over 80 laps on the 2.02 mile street circuit for a total race distance of 161.60 miles, Regazzoni dominated a tough 1- hour and 53 minutes charge to the checkered flag. Then-reigning F1 World Champion Niki Lauda successfully brought his ailing car home in 2nd place, with Patrick Depailler in hisTyrrell 007 completing a fine recovery from a shunt and a later spin by taking 3rd place. Jacques Laffite emerged from the scramble further back to finish 4th ahead of Jochen Mass in 5th. Former two-time World Champ Emerson Fittipaldi finished 6th to score his first Formula 1 point in a new Fittipaldi chassis. Championship contender (and ultimate 1976 Champion) James Hunt was knocked out of the race in a 3rd lap shunt with Depailler.

The first USGP West was a meteoric success. Indeed, former F1 team owner Rob Walker said, “I think the creation of the Long Beach GP was the greatest achievement in motor racing this decade (1970s).” One year later Mario Andretti’s spectacular 1977 win the solidified the popularity of what would soon be called, “The Roar At The Shore,” a name renowned throughout world motorsport to this day.