James Hinchcliffe Wins Grand Prix of Long Beach

What's up, guys? Leslie Robbins here for Young Hollywood back at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach where I am bringing you up close and personal with your favorite IndyCar drivers.

James Hinchcliffe, welcome to our Young Hollywood set. I love it. You're back in Long Beach. How's it feel?

It feels great. I mean this this event's always one of my favorites, you know, I've uh been coming here since 2006 in the junior categories and I've had a lot of first here. I mean my first uh Indy Lights win was here, Uh my first IndyCar Top Five, my first IndyCar podium. So uh it'd be it'd be nice to try and get uh get a W that to uh to all those other things that Long Beach has done well for me.

Mr. Scott Dixon, one of the greatest IndyCar drivers of all time. And I know you're humble and you'll say no. Four championships, Indy 500 win in 2008. Can you brag a little bit please?

I uh I I just feel very lucky. I love racing and and uh you know I was very lucky to to get the chance to race for for this great team uh Chip Ganassi and obviously NTT Data this weekend but um I don't know. I wake up every day very thankful for what I do.

What's with you not putting out your trophies? You have probably like how many under just under a thousand maybe?

Yeah They're all hidden away in a basement.

Is that true?

Yeah yeah, I don't I don't know it just I feel like it's clutter. You know, so I don't I don't want it out there.

You think it's clutter?

Yeah. I I like I'm very minimalistic so I don't like uh, you know, I think if there was a bunch of trophies, you know, one you gotta probably clean them. Right. And two uh I think it would it would clutter the house.

Marco Andretti, a man who needs no introduction. Welcome.

Oh, that's nice of you.

These tracks are home for you. Come on.

Um yeah, I mean there's there's a ton of history here in general at Long Beach but with our family, it's um it's unbelievable. I mean my grandfather has won here numerous times, my father won his first and his last race of his career here. So very special to our family. Um and what an event? I mean, I love coming here. I love driving here. Uh love the fans, love the weather. So everything about it.

So not only did you win the Indy 500 last year you came in third. That's I mean, really? You couldn't kick his butt?

I tried. I tried. We all tried. We all tried to beat Alex in the race.

So you won it once. Do you have to do it again or?

That's the plan, right? I mean uh it's such an unbelievable experience post Indy 500 for the year that that really follows it. Um and you kind of don't want anyone else to have that, so it's a very selfish desire but yeah, we're gonna win it again and Helio did it in O-1 and O-2 so there's no reason why we can't do it.

I saw you rode in on a motorcycle.

I did ride on a motorcycle. Kind of. It's a baby motorcycle. Now, I don't want to ride it.

Okay. Can I test it out? Can I sit on it?

You can sit on it. You want to sit on it?

Yeah. I would love to. All right. So can I stand it up straight? Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, gosh. That was heavy.

I'm gonna pull you back a little bit. All right. That'll be good. All right. So here, put your put your feet up on the pegs as if you're gonna ride it. Okay. There you go. You're basically riding a motorcycle.

You're from Russia. That's not every day you have an IndyCar driver from Russia.

No, I actually am the first one. Yeah. Yeah.

So what made you come to IndyCar?

Well, I think it's a great series. Yeah. You know, it's uh it's the fastest uh race cars in the world. You know, with open wheels. It's pretty dangerous. It's pretty cool. There's a lot of crowd uh a lot of people like it. So I like it as well.

Connor, I had to come over here to see you on your bike because you look really good on it.

Oh, thank you. Well, this is uh a dream of mine to have one of these scooters. This is actually a really big crucial part of being an IndyCar driver. I always grew up watching IndyCar and everyone had a little mini cup scooter. And so now that I have one, I I'm rarely off of it, so I love it.

You brought me a bottle of wine.

Yes.

It's not just any wine. This is very special. Very special. And it's special to Long Beach.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Please explain.

Yeah. I mean, this is my first year's wine. And you can see it is Long Beach edition. So basically celebrate and memorable you know 2013 my first win in Long Beach.

Woo! Thank you. And you have a beer named after you. How did that happen? That's amazing.

Uh well, as you know, I'm Canadian. Yeah. And so we start drinking beer about the age of five. So we're pretty well versed in, you know, barley sandwiches as we call them when we're kids. Um and there's a craft brewery in Indianapolis called Flat 12 and I met the owner and we kind of started coming up with the idea of it was like a joke at first almost to do a do a beer for the month of May for the Indy 500. Yeah. And we did a Twitter contest to name it and so one of my fans came up with the name HinchTown Hammerdown and we loved it.

While you're not on a track, you're actually go-karting recently. I've noticed. You've been go-karting.

No, I go-karted once or twice. I get out of rooms in my free time.

Yes, you're loving escape rooms these days. I've done 23. What's what's with the obsession with the escape rooms? Talk about it.

Well, I did one in Vegas with Tony and Scott. And it was so bad that like it became an obsession to get excellent at them and now I get out of rooms. So it's like I'm an escape room I'm known I'm an escape room artist known for one other thing.

So Fresh off of practice right now.

I am. Yeah, absolutely. We're here. We just finished our final practice session of the weekend. Um next is qualifying, so that's the session that really counts. Qualifyin's where we're sets the grid for tomorrow's race, so we'll all be tryin' our hardest uh later on this afternoon.

You have an actual animal, a dog as a sponsor.

I do. Yeah. Um, Loki the Wolfdog. He's uh pretty popular on Instagram. He's got you know, a million and a half followers or something like that. It's just kind of a unique promoting, you know, cross-promotion kind of deal that we did and, you know, it's a good way for him to get exposure and a good way for us to get exposure as well.

So you are the owner of Loki the Dog who's not just a dog but is Spencer Pigot's and Rising Stars' sponsor. How did this come about?

Yeah, no doubt. First of all, I think he's kinda my owner. But uh, but basically uh we have a relationship with Rising Star and they approached us about hey, would you come on board and kind of uh, uh showcase the event from our channels and we have a pretty big reach like on Instagram and Facebook and things like that. He's against my left leg. We're bonding. I love you. Oh, oh, see I went too far. I went too far with the word love.

Okay. Graham, it is so good to see you again and you are so special that we came to you instead of you coming to our set.

Well, I really really appreciate that cuz our lifestyle is a little busy. So but uh it makes the world of a difference. It's great to have you out here again. Thank you.

Now, why are you so busy? You got like a lot of fans back there.

Yeah, we well this is a lot of what we do, you know. I mean everybody thinks race car driver sitting in there and going fast is is the job. And it is. Yeah. But you know, we have a lot of sponsors here. A lot of uh family, friends, um, you know, mostly sponsors that we have to, you know, do a lot of meet and greets and stuff with. So this is a big one.

Now your dad, former Indy 500 winner, David Letterman, one of the other owners of this amazing team. How's retirement treating him?

I would say I would think good but he did tell me last year that he's getting bored.

Wait, stop, stop. David Letterman told you he's getting bored.

He's getting bored.

Everything we need to run the cars, replace things on the car, repair them, work on them are in these six trucks.

Are you cool with being the poster child for type one diabetes and race car driving? Cuz the combination usually doesn't mix.

I've I've really enjoyed the ambassador aspect of having diabetes and being the first licensed driver with diabetes to race in Indy 500 and and the first driver with diabetes to win an IndyCar race. Those those stories to me have have opened a lot of doors to hear other people's stories.

My teammate Max Chilton hanging out in here. Hey, oh, Max.

It it's the epitome of the taking a break. It's uh it's a I just interviewed Max and his lovely girlfriend. Fiancee. Now fiancee, yeah. Chloe.

Okay. Obviously, we got a place to hang out, look over some data, eat, um, you know, hang up suits. All of our our fire suits, our Nomex um are in these closets. So like like I said, everything we need for a race weekend for sure.

If I was you, I'd put it on right now.

Well, it's I mean, Max wore this morning, so Oh. it's I mean yeah, I well I'm just It smells fresh. It's pretty fresh.

Yeah, you don't It doesn't smell bad. Yeah. Well that it actually doesn't smell bad.

You are much braver than I as far as getting that close with your nose to a used fire suit. I wouldn't recommend doing that tomorrow afternoon post race. And so You said it's not bad. I'm going to take your word for it.

Max it actually, true story, does not smell. I know. I'm just It smells good. We're basically making it dance. This is happening. Okay. It's happening at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. All right, that's right. So which way first? Okay. So, one. So two. Done. Do.