The Long Beach Grand Prix will remain an IndyCar Series race for years to come.
NASCAR had reportedly expressed an interest in acquiring a 50 percent stake in the Southern California street course event and festival made available by the estate of the late Kevin Kalkhoven and Formula 1 has made similar overtures over the past decade too.
It’s a moot point now, as RACER.com reports that the available half of the promotional rights to the race weekend has been acquired by Gerald Forsythe, who owned the other half since the two groups purchased it over the 2000s.
“The estate has agreed to sell its 50% to me,” the industrialist and former owner of the Champ Car series told RACER. “If [any series] has its sights on Long Beach please tell them to look elsewhere. This [is] an IndyCar event, and it will be into the future.”
That’s absolutely definitive.
Forsythe has been an Indy car lifer starting his tenure in 1981 as an entrant and sponsor with wins in the 1995 Indianapolis 500 with Jacque Villeneuve and the 2003 CART championship with Paul Tracy. He also purchased the assets of CART alongside Kalkhoven and Paul Gentilozzi to create the Champ Car World Series, which he then sold to the Indy Racing League in 2008 to form the modern IndyCar Series.
And now, through owning the entire Long Beach Grand Prix weekend, Forsythe will continue to add to IndyCar’s legacy.
Meanwhile, NASCAR, which is looking for events in Southern California to compensate for the absence of races at Auto Club Speedway and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will have to ‘look elsewhere’ in the words of the Long Beach Grand Prix owner.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.