by Ben Kuhl
If you’re a race fan and aren’t living under a rock, you’re no doubt aware that the 2025 Long Beach Grand Prix recently celebrated its 50th year, on April 11–13, 2025. Now well established as the crown jewel of west coast IndyCar events, the LBGP also boasts matchless historic milestones in world motorsports.
Let’s hop in the way-back machine to 1975, when British-American Long Beach travel promoter Chris Pook looked at the bustling shipping hub of Long Beach and thought, “We could definitely chuck race cars around this place.” And so, with vision and determination, he made it happen.
The spectacular power-beasts of Formula 5000 were the first to roar through the streets in that inaugural year, before of a crowd of 60,000+ fans who flocked to sunny southern California. Brian Redman (becoming a legend at that time) put on a clinic in his Haas-Hall Racing Lola T-332, qualifying on pole and leading every lap. Behind him was a knife fight between Mario Andretti, Al Unser, Tony Adamowicz and Eppie Wietzes, with the Long Beach marina and harbor setting a stunning backdrop—one that remains iconic to this day.
You might ask, “What relation does a regional vintage racing organization like VARA have to an international event like this?” You’d be surprised. In recent years the Long Beach Grand Prix has been dipping back into its roots, featuring historic run groups rotating between Formula 1, Group C/IMSA, IndyCar and Trans Am. This year’s showcase featured a powerhouse three-pronged on-track sampling of actual Formula 1, Formula 5000 and IndyCars all racing each other – with the mixed field consisting of cars that raced at Long Beach over the decades. VARA racers and cars were among them! Quite literally, VARA went to the “Beach.”
Familiar Faces in the Flag Stands
Manning the corner stations around the track were a veritable army of SCCA and Cal Club marshals. And if you’ve spent any time racing with VARA, you might recognize a few familiar faces out there — blue flags in hand, waving furiously at some poor GT3 driver while an IMSA prototype carves through traffic for lunch.
In this way, the same folks who keep VARA racers organized on the pre-grid and safe on-track are also looking after the likes of Alex Palou, Will Power, All-American marquis man, Joseph Newgarden and the full field of IndyCar star drivers that blistered the challenging Long Beach Grand street course.
On the Grid: VARA in the F5000 Field
The cross-pollination between VARA and Long Beach doesn’t stop with flaggers and safety staff. Hitting the track in the Formula 5000 feature was VARA’s own Vince Tjelmeland, driving a black Lola T-332 that was once raced by none other than Danny “On The Gas” Ongais. Vince is the current president of SABINA Motors and Controls, and recently competed in VARA’s March 2025 High Desert Challenge at Willow Springs Raceway.
The Eric Broadley-designed T-332 came to define mid-late 1970s-era Formula 5000 classification – rocket fast and sometimes just plain dangerous. Brian Redman dominated in 1974 and 1975 with the Haas-Hall team, going head-to-head with world-class drivers such as Mario Andretti, Jody Scheckter, Al Unser and David Hobbs — several of them also in T-332s. If you wanted to win in F5000, your best chance was behind the wheel of a Gurney Eagle from 1968 to 1974, and a Lola T-332 from late ’74 to 1977, before the F5000 series was sadly disbanded.
Joining Vince was the VARA Formula Ford veteran and early 20th-century cocktail enthusiast, Todd Gerstenberger. Normally found dicing at the front of the Formula Ford pack in his Titan Mk6, Todd was behind the wheel of an ex-Bobby Brown Chevron B24, blue in color and last run at the 2023 Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Weathertech Laguna Seca Raceway.
The Chevron B24 was the first and only pure Formula 5000 design from the Bolton-based Chevron Cars Ltd in England. It succeeded the Chevron B20, which was a Formula 2 car adapted for F5000. Peter Gethin famously drove the B24 to victory in the 1973 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, defeating a field of Formula 1 cars outright – believed to be the only time that has ever happened. John Watson and Tony Dean (Bobby Brown’s teammate) also campaigned B24s through the 1970s.
More Than Vintage: VARA’s IndyCar Footprint
The ties between VARA and the Long Beach Grand Prix don’t end on the track. Tom Malloy, longtime VARA racer and passionate supporter of vintage motorsport, was a focal supporter at the LBGP 50th of two cars – his own 1975 Gurney F5000 Eagle, driven by modern vintage F1 driver Ethan Shippert, as well as a co-sponsor of three-time IndyCar champion Alex Palou, primary driver for the Chip Gnassi NTT IndyCar team. The Malloy Gurney F5000 car, in fact, is the first car ever to run the Long Beach racecourse as a test car in 1975, driven by Bobby Unser and Dan Gurney himself. That very car placed 2nd in the original 1975 Long Beach Grand Prix, driven at that time by Australian Vern Schuppan. Tom himself raced the car with VARA and other sanctioning bodies around the USA from 2000-2015.
So whether you attended the 2025 Long Beach Grand Prix 50th Anniversary in person or watched from home, remember this: even a regional vintage racing club like Vintage Auto Racing Association can have a global footprint when it comes to a race like the Long Beach Grand Prix. Whether you’re standing along the fence with a camera, wrenching on your pride and joy in the paddock, flagging from a corner station, cheering from the grandstands or rooting from your big-screen TV, special events such as the Long Beach Grand Prix remind us of why we fell in love with racing in the first place.
