LONG BEACH – Energy. It was there, and then some, at Tuesday’s news conference announcing Acura as the new title sponsor for the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

When the annual street-course event headlined by the NTT IndyCar race takes place April 12-14, it will be called the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Jim Michaelian, longtime CEO of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach, said with the deal comes with a multi-year contract. He provided no other specifics.

Toyota had been the title sponsor the previous 39 years and the vehicle sponsor for all 44 years the race has been contested. Acura will fill both seats.

Honda is the parent company of Acura. Honda also sponsors three other races on the IndyCar circuit, and, along with Chevrolet, is one of the series’ engine-makers.

Michaelian was pumped, to be sure, when asked what separated Acura from others he negotiated with after Toyota announced in August it was pulling out.

“The quality of our title sponsor is really important to us, to the sport, to the city, to our other sponsors and most of all to our fans,” Michaelian said. “And so as a consequence of that, when you’re taking a look at those attributes and how they apply, Acura certainly stands out.”

Acura has long been involved in sports car racing and will have entries in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, a support series of the Grand Prix. That was big to Michaelian.

“The fact that they’re involved in the sport is incentive,” he said. “It’s much easier to talk to people who engage in a similar kind of activity instead of going through the educational process of bringing in a financial institution or somebody like that who isn’t aware of all these idiosyncrasies of the sporting regulations.

“And the other thing I think that was important was we sensed with Acura a real exciting opportunity here. And as I mentioned before, our people are real energized. They’re excited about this opportunity. And I think it’s fair to say on behalf of Acura and certainly Honda, we sense the same thing there.”

Acura’s U.S. headquarters are in Torrance. Its vice-president and general manager, Jon Ikeda, was stoked to land this gig.

“For us, it’s our time,” he said. “It’s the right time. We’ve been working to revamp the brand (of) precision craft performance and having a title sponsorship like this for this race, the most iconic street-course race in America and be here in Long Beach and be a big part of that, is just the next step.”

Had it wanted to, Honda could have insisted its name be attached to the race. After all, it owns Acura, Honda’s make of luxury vehicles.

Henio Arcangeli Jr., a senior vice-president at Honda, explained that decision.

“What I would say is Honda is fortunate enough to have two amazing brands – the Honda brand and the Acura brand – so we had two very good names to choose from,” he said. “Acura is definitely our premium racing brand, so we felt it was only natural we should be calling it the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.”

IndyCar driver Graham Rahal likes that.

“Honda has always been involved in racing and so has Acura, but Honda always is the obvious name that people think of and it would have been a clear fit here, too,” Rahal said. “But I think for Acura, I think it helps validate the brand further.”

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia was on hand. He talked about the social responsibility of Honda, which, to him, is a big deal.

“The Honda Corporation I think has a really great record of being involved beyond just its business,” he said. “And I think they already had a model where they are involved socially with the communities, they already had a model of philanthropic work – they had numerous programs both within the corporation and externally for their philanthropic work.

“I think that level of involvement is very exciting for us in the city because we know that Acura already represents the luxury brand of Honda. And to know that they can come in and continue that philanthropic work that they do already, I think is really exciting for us.”

There were smiles and handshakes all around. As Michaelian said, “This is truly the start of a new era in the history of the Grand Prix.”