I’ve been going to the Grand Prix of Long Beach since I was around 10 years old. In my 20’s, my father had a condo right on Ocean Boulevard until the mid 2000’s, and I would wake up to the sound of racing and the smell of heated brakes. Back in the day before I was even in junior high, it was easy to sneak in, and my brother and I used to tell the gate attendants that we were taking the water taxi to the Queen Mary. My father was engaged to a woman who was the catering manager there, so our story always seemed believable. Once we were in, we were free to roam around and experience motorsports for that one time a year. We were young and without adults in our company, so maybe the gate attendants were letting us enjoy ourselves. We don’t do stuff like that anymore, although we did eventually make our way to the Queen Mary when we were ready to go home. Because of events like the Grand Prix of Long Beach being a part of my early years, motorsports is now a huge part of my life and completely worth the price of admission if I had a chance to go back and buy those tickets.
