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Celebrity Grand Prix
Stars gather in Long Beach to race for children's charity.
Michael Cooper
Issue date: 4/16/07 Section: Lifestyle
It's noon on Saturday, April 14th in Long Beach. Racecars zoom around the Long Beach Convention Center, driven by 12 celebrities famous for just about anything and everything except auto racing.
Every year the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race forms a part of the weekend festivities for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. For 31 years, celebrities have participated in the 10-lap race, competing against a few professional drivers to raise money for the Racing For Kids organization, which benefits children's hospitals in Southern California.
Driving 2005 Scion tC Sports Coupes, this year's 12 celebrities included filmmaker George Lucas, professional skateboarder Bucky Lasek and TV stars
Kathryn Morris ("Cold Case") and Emily Procter ("CSI: Miami"). The race required hours of practice and training, but Lucas said it was an easy choice deciding to participate again this year.
"It's always a huge amount of fun. I'm not out to win, I'm just out to have a good time," he said.
Morris said that while she also did it to have fun, the charity aspect had a lot to do with her decision to participate.
"(Racing For Kids) is a great charity to contribute to," Morris said. "I try to remember what those kids have gone through, what they're going through. They don't get to come out here and do something like this."Robin Quivers, Howard Stern's radio co-host, was also excited to participate, despite the shock-jock's disparaging words.
"(Howard said,) 'Robin, you're going to die.' He's not for all this risk-taking behavior," she said.
Since the first rounds of practice, BMX rider Dave Mirra and tennis player Martina Navratilova were two of the favorites. Indeed, these odds proved to be true for the actual race Saturday. Mirra and Navratilova occupied the first and second spots, respectively, throughout the entire race.
Not all the racers had so much luck. Kendra Wilkinson ("The Girls Next Door"), Grand Marshall Hugh Hefner's obvious favorite, crashed into a wall halfway through the race.
An even bigger accident occurred during lap nine when Lucas, a bit overzealous, crashed into a tire barrier, dragging novice driver Annamarie Dean with him (two novices win places in the race every year for their charitable donations).
"I got a little overambitious, and I deserved going into the wall, I admit it," Lucas said after the race.
With a clean-up crew forced onto the track, the red flag was waved, signaling the remaining drivers to stop. With only one lap left, the race was called and the drivers quietly passed the finish line in the same order they were in before the bang-up. Mirra was declared the winner, Navratilova was the runner-up and "The Young and the Restless" star Joshua Morrow came in third place.
Model and actress Kelly Hu ("In Case of Emergency"), who came in ninth place, said after it was over, "Even though we didn't get to finish this race the way we wanted to, we are all friends for life and have had a great experience."
All the celebrity racers echoed Hu's attitude. Actress and former host of "Talk Soup" Aisha Tyler, who placed 11th, may have even found a new calling.
"I love extreme sports, I snowboard and rock clim,b so I thought I would like (auto racing), and I absolutely loved it," Tyler said. "I'm going to do this every year now. I'm really trying to figure out how I can race semi-professionally, it's unbelievable."
Emily Procter had never even driven a stick shift prior to the race. Nevertheless, after a lot of practice, she finished a respectable eighth place and said she would compete again in a heartbeat.
"The only thoughts I can really have at this moment are how amazing it was and how sad I am it's over," she said.
And what about Lucas' accident?
"When I saw him coming up, I thought, oh my God, George is just in it to win it. When I saw him at the speed he was carrying, I thought he was going right into the wall. When it happened I thought, I'm so glad that's not me," Procter joked.
After completing the race, one question remained: was it more difficult to drive on the track or on the freeway? Morris, who came in 13th place, thought the freeway is more hazardous.
"The thing about the freeway is that you have the idiot factor, which is alive and well. You just got idiots eating sandwiches, on the phone, making life hell for everyone else on the 405," she said.Mirra summed up everyone's feeling by emphasizing that it was more about the fun than the glory of winning.
"I was like a kid in a candy store," he said. "I was out here racing cars, ripping around as fast as I could. I had a great time."
