As Chris Pook and two others got into an elevator for a critical meeting with the California Coastal Commission 50 years ago on the fate of the first Grand Prix of Long Beach, they were joined by an unidentified young man who had ridden there on his bike.

The biker, a short man with long hair, stood the bike up on its rear wheel and brought it into the elevator for the ride to the sixth floor of the Port of Long Beach building. As they got out of the elevator, Pook assumed the stranger with the bike was coming to argue against a Formula 1 race on the streets of Long Beach and said so to his friends.

Pook could not have been more wrong.

“It turned out that the young man would become one of the greatest assets the Grand Prix of Long Beach ever enjoyed,” Pook would say later in a book by Gordon Kirby on the history of the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

That stranger on the bike was Jim Michaelian, who would eventually take over the operation of the Grand Prix from Pook, becoming president and CEO as the race transformed into one of the most important in the United States — and a worldwide motorsports success story. And on Thursday, Michaelian was inducted into the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame, along with driver Scott Dixon and former Mayor Beverly O’Neill.

“Unbeknownst to me, my staff got involved with this and totally surprised me,” Michaelian said. “I am very humbled by this honor.”

Michaelian — even at 32, when he was in that elevator with Pook — loved racing. In fact, he loved it so much, he had his driver’s license suspended for too many speeding violations.

So he rode his bike to get around.

“I read about Pook wanting to start a race on the streets of Long Beach so I went to the commission meeting to express my enthusiasm for the race,” Michaelian told me in a recent interview. “I figured it had a great deal of potential for fans and would be something to help improve the city.”

Michaelian had a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s degree in business administration from UCLA, but had not settled on a definite career goal.

He volunteered to help Pook and became the Grand Prix Association’s financial officer.

“It was a perfect fit,” Pook would say later.

Michaelian said he had no idea that, when he started working with Pook 50 years ago, that the race would take off like it did — with 200,000 fans attending on race weekend.

“The first two years were tough, and we had to scramble for funding,” he said. “There were some sleepless nights then.”

Michaelian told the story of how he was excited during the first race, when word was that more than 60,000 people had paid for the race. But his elation didn’t last when he talked to the staff member handling the ticket sales.

“I don’t know what numbers you have,” the staffer said, “but I know that only 39,000 have actually paid for tickets for this race.”

During the early years, Michaelian said, the Grand Prix ran deficits — so race officials had to go year-by-year.

“The turning point came in 1977 when Mario Andretti won the race,” Michaelian said. “With his name recognition and enthusiasm, the opportunity to sell the race became much easier and Toyota came on board as title sponsor for 39 years.”

(Acura is the current title sponsor.)

Michaelian took over as president and CEO of the Grand Prix when Pook left in 2002 to become CEO of Championship Auto Racing Teams.

Michaelian said he faced a major challenge when Toyota left — but Acura has been a great new sponsor.

Another challenge Michaelian faced was the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the Grand Prix to be canceled in 2020.

“That cancellation cost us financially,” he said. “There was talk of cancelling the race in 2021, but I did not want to go without a race for two years in a row. It was a substantial challenge, but we put together a race in September 2021. Our attendance was a little down, but it re-established that the Long Beach Grand Prix would continue and we ran the 2022 race in April, our regular month.”

As Michaelian prepared for the 50th anniversary of the Grand Prix, he reminisced on how his love for driving and racing got started.

“My interest in autos and driving got an early start as a youngster,” he said. “I was living in Alhambra, but I spent the summers at my grandma’s vineyards in Folsom. When I was 5 or 6, I wanted to drive tractors on the farm. The caretaker let me do that by letting me sit on the tractor with him and use some of the controls. That was great.”

Michaelian said he learned how to drive when he was 12 or 13 by driving his aunt’s car on back roads.

“I bought my first car, a Chevrolet Impala, in 1960,” he said. “In my early years, I spent some time at the Lions Drag Strip and got more interested in racing.”

That interest led him into endurance races in Europe and elsewhere when he was 49.

He continues to race and succeed as the Grand Prix’s leader, despite the loss of his left eye to cancer in 2000.

“It was a relatively rare type of cancer,” he said. “Doctors said, ‘Lose an eye or lose a life.”

Asked what he is proudest of in his 50 years with the Grand Prix, Michaelian talked about his family.

“What’s important to me is my family with a wife, Mary, of 59 years, and two great sons working in an environment I love in a city I love,” he said. “This is my description of the ideal job.”

In an interview, Mary Michaelian said her husband has done a wonderful job with the Grand Prix.

“He has used the gifts that God gave him to achieve so much,” she said.

Jim Michaelian, for his part, said he was proud of helping to expand and develop Long Beach.

“Often overlooked are the literally thousands of people — employees and volunteers like the Committee of 300 — who have worked so hard to make this event a success,” Michaelian said. “I couldn’t have done this without the help of so many people.”

He also applauded Pook for having the creativity and courage to start the Grand Prix in the first place.

And, Michaelian said, he’s also proud of how the Grand Prix has become a community event — not just a sports car race.

“We live here, we work here, this is our life,” he said. “It’s great to hear people say they may not be a huge race car fan, but they are proud of their city being able to put on a successful event that gets worldwide attention.”

He complimented businesses like King Taco, which makes free tickets available to thousands of Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach members to have front-row grandstand seats on race day.

His staff has worked hard to have community outreach, especially with students, with programs like having race drivers go to schools throughout the city and talk to kids, Michaelian said.

“Since Day 1,” Michaelian said, “we also have allowed children under 12 in for free to make this a family event as much as possible.”

Michaelian will be on his familiar scooter over race day weekend as he gets around the racing circuit.

“I love what I do,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier.”