Jim Michaelian has had a passion for auto racing long before he became the president and CEO of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach. That love, in fact, began when he was 12 or so, when he learned how to drive a car on the back roads of his grandmother’s vineyard in Fresno during summers.
As a teenager back at his home in Alhambra, he graduated to driving hot rods. His love of fast cars brought with it speeding tickets through his college days at UCLA and his early years working at different jobs.
“Driving around Southern California, I got my fair share of tickets,” Michaelian, who will step down as GPALB’s leader later this year, said in an interview a few years ago.
Those tickets led to an inauspicious beginning to his time with the Grand Prix.
Jim Michaelian, president and CEO of the Grand Prix Association, left, gets a hug from this year’s Allen Wolfe Spirit Award recipient Rich Archbold on Saturday, Apr. 20, 2024, in the Grand Prix of Long Beach media center. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)
Jim Michaelian, president and CEO of the Grand Prix Association, left, presents the Allen Wolfe Spirit Award to columnist Rich Archbold on Saturday, Apr. 20, 2024, in the Grand Prix of Long Beach media center. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)
Jim Michaelian, Grand Prix Association of Long Beach president and CEO, addresses the crowd following the Grand Prix 5K on Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)
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Jim Michaelian, president and CEO of the Grand Prix Association, left, gets a hug from this year’s Allen Wolfe Spirit Award recipient Rich Archbold on Saturday, Apr. 20, 2024, in the Grand Prix of Long Beach media center. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)
Instead of driving a car to a key meeting in 1975 to hear about a proposal to start a Formula 1 grand prix race on Long Beach streets, in fact, Michaelian, then 32, rode a bicycle. It’s not that he didn’t want to drive a car to the meeting at the Port of Long Beach. He couldn’t — his license had been suspended because of the speeding tickets.
But nothing was going to keep him from hearing about this race, which some people were calling “a crazy idea” of Chris Pook, an Englishman who had come to the United States and was running a travel agency in downtown Long Beach.
In a book by Gordon Kirby, “Chris Pook & the History of the Long Beach GP,” Pook rode up with two colleagues in an elevator to the sixth floor of the port building for a meeting of the Coastal Commission.
“They were joined at the last minute by a short man with long dark hair,” Kirby wrote. “He arrived on his bicycle and stood it up on its rear wheel as he joined them in the elevator.”
That man with a bike was Michaelian, who didn’t know Pook then, but he interviewed with him two days later. He asked Pook if there was anything he could do to help the race project move forward.
Michaelian had a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s degree in business administration. It was a time when many young men were going into engineering because of the U.S. space race with Russia, which had launched Sputnik. Michaelian decided he wasn’t cut out to save the world as a space engineer. So he tried different jobs, including working for a motor supplier and operating some bookstores.
Nothing really interested him until he heard about Pook’s Grand Prix proposal. Pook was looking for a chief financial officer to manage the financial operations of the hoped-for first Grand Prix race.
Pook told me in an interview on Thursday, Jan. 15, that he explained the risk to Michaelian and that he couldn’t be paid for 120 days because of lack of money.
“But he was enthusiastic and said that was OK,” Pook said. “It turned out to be a perfect fit. He was 32 and did a helluva job when we had financial problems. He was a hard worker and did an excellent job.”
Michaelian eventually became CEO and president of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach in 2001, when Pook left to take a racing job in Indianapolis.
And Michaelian has been the face — and heart — of the Grand Prix of Long Beach ever since.
Last year, Michaelian celebrated the 50th anniversary of the race, now the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. It was announced Thursday that Michaelian will step down from his role after this year’s race. He will transition into a new role with Penske Entertainment, which acquired the Long Beach street race in November 2024. He will be succeeded by Jim Liaw, the former general manager of Performance Racing Industry.
Michaelian said he will be available to Penske for any projects they would like him to handle.
“I still have a lot more to give to this sport,” he said in a Thursday interview. “I’m not walking away from Long Beach. I’m just transitioning to a new role and feel very comfortable with it. If I have a legacy, it is the fact that the Long Beach Grand Prix has become an integral part of the fabric of the community due to the efforts of Chris Pook and others, up to the great staff members we have today.
“Looking back, the race changed the image of Long Beach,” Michaelian added. “Back then, as a Navy town, it was in the shadow of Los Angeles. The Grand Prix created a new vitality in the city, which has grown where we had over 200,000 attendants last year.”
Michaelian is proud of this great race and the fact that the three-day event has also become an entertaining weekend for families, he said.
“We wanted to provide an exciting racing event,” he said, “and one that was also entertaining and safe for everyone.”
Don Rodriguez, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach, thanked Michaelian for his role with King Taco, which has provided 1,000 tickets for kids to attend the race.
“These kids never would have been able to see this race without those tickets,” Rodriguez said. “Jim and King Taco deserve great credit for helping thousands of kids and their families.”
Michaelian said some of his favorite moments in the past 50 years included:
Mario Andretti winning the race in 1977. “That changed the perception that this was no longer a struggling race,” he said, “and put us on the map worldwide.”
Moving from Formula 1 cars to IndyCars in 1984, which solved a lot of financial issues.
Coming back with races in September 2021 and April 2022 after having to cancel in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “That was remarkable,” he said.
The early years, meanwhile, were tough financially — but were also enjoyable because of people like Pook and others.
“There were very big obstacles before us back then, but we found ways to remove them and make this whole thing work,” Michaelian said. “There was always a spirit that we were not going to be defeated.”
As for the future, Michaelian said he feels good physically at 82 and will be celebrate his 83rd birthday in early February.
And while Michaelian will soon leave his leadership role at the Grand Prix behind, he won’t vanish from the motorsports world — and may, in fact, do a bit of racing himself.
“It’s been a genuine thrill to have this opportunity I’ve had,” Michaelian said. “It was the opportunity of a lifetime. I have no regrets. You don’t do something for 50 plus years and not love doing it, but there is an inevitability in life as you grow older. I’ve dealt with the Big C (cancer) in losing my right eye and continue to do my regular checks.
But, yes, I would like to continue to do some competitive racing myself, too,” he added. “I love racing.”
And largely because of Michaelian, so does Long Beach.