Nate Jones

Nate is a born and bred Long Beach guy, attending Poly High School and Long Beach City College. He is married with 3 children and 3 grandchildren.

Nate is founder/owner of Nate Jones Tire Co. – established in 1967 – an auto, general and high-performance/racing tire and balance business. (His partner is the younger Nate.) In the high-performance area, racing tires for Bonneville Salt Flats vehicles are a specialty. Nate has done tires and balance for hundreds of teams and has been a part of the team for Speed Demon, a streamliner that has achieved a world record of 439.6 mph with a one-way record of 462 mph.

In 1975 Nate became one of the 20 original founders of the Long Beach Grand Prix and in that same year became Director of Paddock Operations, a position he has held every year since.He has worked various other US venues as well as Canada and Spain for Indy-type cars, X Games Global Rally Cross, IMSA and other types of racing.
When Nate was 10 he visited the USS Missouri in port at Long Beach; he was hooked on battleships.

In the 1990s he became part of a group to bring the Missouri to southern California, but ultimately it ended up at Pearl Harbor. 4 years ago Nate joined a group hoping to bring another battleship – the USS Iowa -  to the area. This effort was successful and the Iowa is berthed at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro.

In the 1990s Nate founded a nonprofit – Kids Hands and Minds Together – to promote creative, active, and unplugged activities for children using their brain and hands together. He has designed a take-apart, gravity-powered car (sit-in) to get kids involved.