41st Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

41st LBGP Celebrity Field. All Photos by William "Jaye" Johnson
41st LBGP Celebrity Field. All Photos by William “Jaye” Johnson

Long Beach, Ca- Sir Patrick Stewart will serve as Grand Marshal for the featured Verizon IndyCar Series race on Sun., April 19 at the 41st Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The acclaimed stage and screen actor is a racing enthusiast who competed in the 2002 Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race on the streets of Long Beach.  Best known for his roles in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and the X-Men franchise, Stewart returns to series television later this year starring as the title character in “Blunt Talk,” a half-hour comedy executive produced by Seth MacFarlane and Jonathan Ames for Starz.

Saturday’s Grand Marshal, pro football star DeSean Jackson, is a three-time NFL Pro Bowl selection who prepped at Long Beach Poly High School before going on to stardom at the University of California, Berkeley, and with the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins.

 Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe will wave the green flag as Saturday’s Honorary Starter and will also star later that evening in the “Rock-N-Roar” Concert, free to race ticketholders.  On Sunday, Honorary Starter honors fall to long-time open-wheel and sports car driving star Adrian Fernandez, who is enshrined on the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame.

Saturday’s national anthem singer will be Karla Mosley, who has appeared in “Hart of Dixie” and currently is a regular on TV’s popular “The Bold and the Beautiful” and, on Sunday, actor/musician James Maslow, a competitor in Saturday’s Pro/Celebrity Race and the star of the top-rated Nickelodeon program, “Big Time Rush,” will sing the anthem before the IndyCar race.

 Sunday’s invocation will be given by Father Glenn O’Conner, Catholic Chaplain with the Verizon IndyCar Ministry.  And, our nation’s colors will be presented on both days by Alpha Company, Recruiting and Retention Battalion, California Army National Guard.

Fans can also follow the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Facebook at GrandPrixLB,  Twitter @ToyotaGPLB, Instagram at ToyotaGPLB and Snapchat at ToyotaGPLB.

 

-TGPLB-