Long Beach is the Monaco of IndyCar, American motorsport

You’ll find Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles located two blocks off the Long Beach Grand Prix’s landmark Turn 11 hairpin corner. Not only is Southern California’s sweet and savory cultural tentpole a longstanding fixture in movies, songs and television, but it also serves as a popular destination for post-race victory celebrations — as 2021 IndyCar champion Alex Palou confirmed.

Thanks to @OfficialRoscoes for the delicious meal! 😋@AlexPalou | @IndyCar pic.twitter.com/5HxRRJpBsv

— Chip Ganassi Racing (@CGRTeams) September 27, 2021

Unlike Formula One‘s marquee street race, Long Beach isn’t nestled into the coastal hills of the French Riviera and it’s definitely lacking in opulent casinos and black-tie affairs. Ours is geared more toward the surfers and tailgate crowd.

At the annual gathering on the streets of Long Beach, we’ve got fried chicken, Patron, taco trucks, sand, palm trees, flip-flops, bands, drifting, IndyCar, IMSA’s sports car championship and historic F1 cars in the most American of events. Get to mid-April, and it’s an entire week packed with love and revelry for motor racing as our world turns its attention toward Shoreline Drive and the Pacific Ocean, a tradition that began with the inaugural Long Beach GP in 1975.

“For me, it is my Monaco,” McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown tells ESPN. “I’m from L.A. The first-ever race I went to was the 1981 [Long Beach] Grand Prix and I still have the race program. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was like, ‘There’s Mario Andretti!’ At one Long Beach Grand Prix, I absolutely fell in love with racing.”

In the same way the Super Bowl and World Cup live on bucket lists, Long Beach is a worthy addition to the roster of events that need to be experienced at least once in a sports fan’s life.

Run on a winding selection of city streets, cars weave around a manicured bed of roses that surround a water fountain featuring a statue of a dolphin. Drivers streak past a movie theater and a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Nearing 180 mph, they blast through the shadows behind the Long Beach Convention Center before emerging into sunlight and sky-high apartment buildings.

And then they navigate a tricky complex that terminates at the aforementioned Turn 11 hairpin where collisions are commonplace. If drivers can escape being rear-ended or speared in the side, though, it’s a chance to rocket down…