What to know about the 6 types of races at the 2026 Grand Prix of Long Beach

Six different types of motorsports will be part of race weekend at the 2026 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The Friday-through-Sunday lineup features a wide range of cars and trucks, including the NTT Indycar Series and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Fans will have several opportunities to see each race series with on-track action starting Friday and the headlining races scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

Below, a look at the race series at the 2026 Grand Prix of Long Beach.

NTT IndyCar Series

These open-wheel cars — the same competing at the Indianapolis 500 in May — make up the grid for Sunday’s feature race as they have for decades. Raced on banked oval tracks, road and street courses, the versatile turbo-charged cars are synonymous with Long Beach, where they’ll reach top speeds around 185 mph in front of the grandstands on Shoreline Drive.

Unlike other racing series, IndyCar racing does not include aids like power steering, traction control and anti-lock brakes. The field uses a spec chassis — the Dallara IR-18 — which narrows performance gaps, keeps costs down and contributes to tightly packed racing. Aerodynamic packages can be adjusted, depending on what the course demand. At Long Beach and other street courses, a high downforce package works best, giving the driver more stability in corners. The package includes larger front and rear wings and bodywork that prioritizes downforce without sacrificing too much straight-line speed during to long run down Shoreline Drive.

The regulated engine used by the entire field is a 2.2-liter twin-turbocharged V6 engine supplied by either Honda or Chevrolet. They produce more than 700 horsepower. The powerplant’s energy recovery system captures and deploys energy during a race. Teams work with engine manufacturers to tune performance for each race.

IndyCar uses a renewable fuel made form second-gen ethanol derived form sugarcane waste.

2025 Results: Kyle Kirkwood raced to the top of the podium in 2025with an average speed of just over 100 mph, finishing 2.68 seconds ahead of Alex Palou. Kyffin Simpson clocked fast lap at 68.1355 seconds.

2026 Standings: Kirkwood leads the driver’s standings entering Round 5 in Long Beach, just two points ahead of Palou. He has one win and four top-five finishes.

Schedule: Practice sessions are set for Friday with qualifying scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Saturday, which includes a six-competitor shootout round to decide to top six places on the grid. The feature race is scheduled for 2:45 p.m. Sunday.

IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship

One of the world’s most exciting and competitive sports car racing series is in the spotlighted Saturday in a 100-minute shootout. The event is actually multiple races in one with hybrid-engine GTP prototypes and GT Daytona (GTD) production-based cars on the track at the same time, making for heavy traffic.

The cars, drivers and teams have been battle tested already this season at the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring, so the 100-minute race on the 1.9-mile Long Beach street course is a relative sprint race.

The GTD class features cars that look much more like their road counterparts from Aston Martin, BMW, Chevrolet, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Lexus, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche.

As for fuel, the GTP racers use what’s called an R80 fuel formulated from both first and second-generation biomass.

2025 Results: The Porsche Penske Motorsport GTP team of Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy led a Porsche 1-2 at Long Beach in 2025. Nasr, who has been on a tear to start the 2026 season, set fast lap at 1:12.708. In GTD, Lexus to the top two spots, led by Parker Thompson and Jack Hawksworth.

2026 Standings: The Porsche team of Julien Andlauer, Laurin Heinrich and Nasr lead the point standings after the two endurance events in Florida.

Schedule: IMSA will set its grid Saturday with a 5:25 p.m. qualifying session for the two race groups. The feature sports car race is at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Getty

Getty

Stadium SUPER Trucks

Stadium SUPER Trucks literally fly down Shoreline Drive. The powerful trucks provide some of the weekend’s best entertainment, soaring off ramps as they compete side-by-side.

Schedule: The Stadium SUPER Trucks race Saturday at 5:15 p.m. and Sunday at 12:15 p.m.

Porsche Carrera Cup

Spec Porsche 911 race cars will compete in two races on Saturday at 9:05 a.m. and 11:20 a.m. Sunday.

Getty

Getty

Super Drift Challenge

The Super Drift Challenge is a tire-smoking fan favorite in which drivers slide through turns. Judges watch for a driver’s line on the course, angle in the turns and and style. A trailing car’s proximity to the lead car also is a factor in the tandem competition.

Historic sports cars

Historic Sports Cars: Exhibition races that turn back the clock to the 1970s through 1991, when manufacturers like AMC, Audi, Chevrolet, Ford, Jaguar, Mercury, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Porsche and more put their cars to the test on the race course.

The cars will be on track for two morning sessions Saturday and Sunday.

Click here for the full race weekend schedule.

Acura GPLB

Acura GPLB

About the Long Beach street course

A lap doesn’t take long in Long Beach. The course is only 1.968 miles with 11 turns. The fastest section is along Shoreline Drive and the start-finish line, where fans in the grandstands can watch cars reach their top speeds and see what happens when pit lane gets busy.

From there, drivers brake hard into Turn 1, an overtaking opportunity before the dolphin fountain section and turns 2 and 3. After navigating turns 4 and 5, the track parallels a portion of Shoreline Drive — an exciting viewing area on the dive down into Turn 6.

Drivers set up through here for the blast down Seaside Way and entry into another technical section of track that includes a sweeping left into the hairpin Turn 11. This last section of the track is another great place to watch.

Take a lap with Colton Herta during his blistering qualifying run in 2022.