Acura Team Penske drivers Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya were inducted into the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame Thursday. The joint project of the City of Long Beach and the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach honoured the two IMSA drivers who each won the Grand Prix of Long Beach during their INDYCAR career.
Castroneves won in an IndyCar at Long Beach in 2001 and also captured the 1997 Indy Lights race at the circuit. The Brazilian native is in his first season with Acura Team Penske’s #7 Acura ARX-05 Prototype entry in this year’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with co-driver, and reigning IMSA champion, Ricky Taylor.
“It is an honour to see your name on the list, for me, it’s just incredible,” said Castroneves. “It blows my mind away and I always remember this place. You can ask any driver in the series, if you’ve got to pick one street course you want to win, everybody’s going to say Long Beach because your name, your picture is going to be right there forever.”
Montoya won the 1999 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach en route to capturing the 1999 CART FedEx Series championship and finished third at Long Beach in 2015. A native of Colombia, Montoya is co-driving with Dane Cameron in the Acura Team Penske #6 Prototype in the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech Championship.
“This is unbelievable, a huge deal,” said Montoya. “I came here a few years ago to see [team boss] Roger [Penske] get inducted and it was huge. There are huge names here. You don’t realize when you race and win you win the races, you never do it to be here. But to be recognized for everything that you’ve done, it’s amazing.”
Each driver received a “Walk of Fame” medallion, which includes renditions of the racers' Long Beach-winning cars, as well as their major achievements in motorsports.
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