This past weekend, Frontstretch sent me, a NASCAR reporter, to cover the NTT IndyCar Series at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, and the experience was enlightening.
To clarify, no, this wasn’t some type of mix-up. I went to get my feet wet in the series before going to cover NASCAR star Kyle Larson‘s efforts in the Indianapolis 500 this May.
So there I was, someone who grew up watching NASCAR and has covered maybe 50+ NASCAR Cup Series races for Frontstretch, at my first IndyCar race … ever. On one hand, I was a fish out of water. On the other, racing is racing and drivers are drivers, no matter the series or car.
To start the weekend, I vastly underestimated how long it would take to get from my hotel room 15 miles from the course to the media center on the Friday before the race. Obviously, it takes longer to drive anywhere in Southern California, but I didn’t take into account that there would be so many people at the course on a Friday.
At NASCAR races, getting in the track and getting a good parking spot on a Friday is so easy. Plus, NASCAR media are provided parking. For Long Beach, you have to battle with everyone else to get a spot in one of the parking garages. I parked seven-tenths of a mile from where I needed to be, and the line to get past security was long.
With my NASCAR media card, I can go right past security without stopping at those races. With the IndyCar credentials I had, I went through security just like all the fans. This security consisted of cops putting bags into an X-ray machine. Then, after walking forward another 10 feet, a person in a yellow shirt would look through your bag. Because apparently a cop and an X-ray machine can’t do a thorough enough job.
Anyways, these hold-ups took so long that I had missed a press conference or two by the time I got there. The media center there was set up in a ballroom within the Long Beach Convention Center, which is just a massive, massive building.
The Convention Center also served as what you would call in NASCAR “the midway,” hosting tons of vendors, merchandise tents, a kids zone and more. It had one booth that was just futuristic-looking massage chairs (I may have tested one out at the end of one of the days).
My only knock on the Convention Center “midway” was that there wasn’t a ton of IndyCar driver merch available. One tent had more Larson Indy 500 diecasts for sale than all the full-time IndyCar drivers combined. I saw…
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