{"id":136710,"date":"2026-01-16T21:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136710\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T21:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:07:08","slug":"acura-grand-prix-of-long-beach-gets-a-new-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136710\/","title":{"rendered":"Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach Gets a New Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will get a new Jim starting June 30. <\/p>\n

After 25 years as president and CEO, Jim Michaelian will step into a new role in the Penske Entertainment organization and Jim Liaw will take over. <\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

Michaelian, 82, joined the Grand Prix Association at the race\u2019s founding by Chris Pook in 1975 and has been with it ever since, serving as controller, chief operating officer, and as president and CEO since 2001.
<\/p>\n

\u201cMichaelian will continue to guide the event and company through the 2026 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend and will work closely with Liaw to ensure a smooth leadership transition,\u201d read a statement from the AGPLB. \u201cOn February 9, 2026, Liaw, 50, will assume the temporary title of General Manager for the 2026 event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liaw co-founded what became Formula Drift when he was still in college, officially starting FD in 2004. He and co-founder Ryan Sage built the organization into the largest and most successful drifting sanctioning body in the world. <\/p>\n

\"orangeMediaNews Group\/Orange County Register via Getty Images\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Long Beach started as F5000, went to F1, and is now known mostly for IndyCar.<\/p>\n

Formula Drift has held the invitational \u201cSuper Drift Challenge\u201d as part of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach since 2005. After the loss of Irwindale Speedway last year, FD held its closing round on turns nine, 10, and 11 of the Long Beach Grand Prix course.<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

Liaw moved from Formula Drift to General Manager of Performance Racing Industry (PRI) in 2021. PRI is \u201can organization that supports and advocates for the interests of racers, enthusiasts, builders, tracks, sanctioning bodies, and businesses.\u201d PRI runs the largest annual motorsports trade show in the world, the next one scheduled for December 10\u201312, 2026, in Indianapolis. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m honored to join the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach and to help lead one of the most recognized and respected events in motorsports,\u201d Liaw said. \u201cThe Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is incredibly meaningful to me\u2014it was the first major race I ever attended nearly 30 years ago, and it helped spark a lifelong connection to motorsports. Southern California has been home since I was six, so it\u2019s truly an honor to represent Long Beach and the region while leading such a special event. I\u2019m excited to be part of this iconic race and to help shape its future for generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford family and spent many hours holding a trouble light over a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor while his father cursed the Blue Oval, all its products and everyone who ever worked there. This was his introduction to objective automotive criticism. He started writing for City News Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and became editor of a car magazine called, creatively, Auto. He decided Auto should cover Formula 1, sports prototypes and touring cars\u2014no one stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show and has been with us ever since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will get a new Jim starting June 30. After 25 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[47544,69554,9569,9568,131,133,132,69553],"class_list":["post-136710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-a958d3a9-f58a-4b08-8505-f07eb5f9ff63","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-locale-us","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-shorttitle-acura-grand-prix-of-long-beach-gets-a-new-leader"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}