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Re: Extinct drag srtip: San Fernando
Rats! Thanks Rick, that other thread has some great pics.
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Re: Extinct drag srtips
Los Angeles Times article: Losing track of a special time
By Jim Peltz October 30, 2007 Panning across a vacant strip of asphalt and empty grandstands, a homemade video clip on YouTube.com shows the now silent Los Angeles County Raceway, a drag strip in Palmdale that closed this summer. It’s a requiem for a wind-swept parcel of land that presented drag racing for more than 40 years, a track that outlasted – until now – the march of progress that long ago doomed most other such venues. But a generation ago Southern California was a drag racing capital, with nearly a dozen quarter-mile drag strips from Saugus to Long Beach at various times between the early 1950s and early 1980s. It was drag racing’s golden era for many fans, with mostly grass roots racing and celebrated drivers with nicknames such as Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen. “California was the hub of what was happening in drag racing,” said Tom Madigan, a former racer who chronicled the area’s racing history in a book this year, “Fuel & Guts: The Birth of Top Fuel Drag Racing.” Then there was the outsider they all feared, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, a Floridian who wasn’t particularly big in size but whose black “Swamp Rat” dragsters often humbled local drivers on his frequent trips to Southern California. The region’s drag racing heritage comes to mind as the sport’s top professional drivers return to Pomona this weekend for the season finale of the National Hot Rod Assn.’s premier circuit, the Powerade Series. The Auto Club Raceway in Pomona is among the few surviving drag strips in Southern California because it remains to pro drag racing what Indianapolis is to Indy-style race cars and Daytona Beach are to NASCAR. The only others left are a drag strip at the California Speedway in Fontana and a one-eighth-mile strip at Irwindale Speedway. Another survivor is the Auto Club Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield. Otherwise, the drag strips that once featured mostly amateurs racing in Long Beach, San Gabriel, Colton, San Fernando, Orange County and other Southern California cities are long gone, squeezed out by surging population and land that became too valuable for the sport’s nitro-burning, tire-squealing cars and were too noisy for ever-encroaching homeowners. “It was urban sprawl,” Garlits, now 75, said on a recent visit to the Famoso track for a drag racing reunion. “It’s not the same as it was when we were getting going in the ’60s, when there was a drag strip in every little town, practically.” Drag racing took hold here after World War II, when returning soldiers and others with a few extra bucks and a love of racing built cars they initially ran on dry lake beds. As the hot-rod culture took root in Southern California in the early 1950s, drag racing blossomed as public drag strips began opening, with plenty of land and weather that supported year-round racing. “At the dry lakes, it was hot, dusty and a long way from here,” said Greg Sharp, curator of the NHRA Wally Parks Motorsports Museum in Pomona. “At the [local] drag strip you could go every weekend and your car didn’t get filthy dirty.” Whether it’s coincidence, as the drag strips have disappeared, the number of accidents and arrests related to illegal street racing has become a major problem in Southern California. Some former drag strips in Southern California were opened 50 years ago, at least in part, to get the kids off the streets. One of the region’s most popular old strips was Lions, just outside the Long Beach city limits. It was started in 1955 by several chapters of Lions civic clubs, a Long Beach judge and a manager named Mickey Thompson so that people would have a legal place to race. Lions quickly became one of the drag racers’ tracks of choice, and Thompson would later become one of Southern California’s leading motor sports promoters. “Each drag strip had its own specific character,” Madigan said. “That was important to the guys who ran them. Like Long Beach. You didn’t have any nerve if you didn’t run Long Beach. It had a mystique about it. “It’s kind of hard to describe, but that drag strip became hallowed ground,” he said. “You could smell the oil from the nearby refineries, you could feel the smog.” All the drag strips enabled drivers of modest means to keep racing, and gave fans the opportunity to see flame-spewing, ultra-loud dragsters up close for an admission of $2 to $5. “We ran Long Beach one day and the next day San Fernando,” said Tony Waters, 80, a drag-racing pioneer who also attended the reunion at Famoso. “Back in those days the drag strips were everywhere, and everybody could afford it.” Sharp said most racers “ran on a weekly basis and it was open to all-comers, anybody who wanted to come and try to race.” “They would typically be racing for $500 cash or a $500 savings bond, something like that,” Sharp said. “But they were all mostly amateurs.” In the late-1950s and early ’60s, “guys actually started making a living running on Saturday nights and Sundays,” Madigan said. “They started making a grand here, two grand there. And back in ‘60-‘61, you could live on a grand a month.” In 1967, the sport hit its apex in the region with the opening of Orange County International Raceway in Irvine. Considered among the best drag strips ever built at the time, it featured modern grandstands, an electronic scoreboard and state-of-the-art timing technology. But as the 1970s arrived, drag racing began changing and the surge in Southern California’s population and property values changed the landscape for drag strips too. Before then, the most popular form of dragster was the top-fuel car, which had a tiny cockpit in the rear over enormous tires. The supercharged engine and transmission, and a long, spindly chassis, were in front. But after losing part of a foot when his transmission exploded in 1970 at Lions, Garlits designed the rear-engine top-fuel dragster that revolutionized the sport and is still used today. (One of his cars sits in the Smithsonian Institution.) The new design enabled dragsters to go well over 200 mph, and corporate sponsors were increasingly drawn to the growing sport. The introduction of “funny cars,” dragsters that had a complete body over the driver, engine and chassis, drew even more sponsors. Their involvement, and the costs of building cars that could keep reaching ever-higher speeds, started lifting the cost of drag racing beyond the reach of many. “It was just too expensive,” said James Warren of Bakersfield, another former driver who attended the Famoso reunion. “That’s why we had to drop out. I had to either quit my job and tour, or work. I had to work.” Simultaneously, many tracks could no longer survive the noise complaints, rising land values and higher insurance costs related to the soaring, more dangerous speeds. San Fernando closed in 1969, Lions in 1972 and the first Irwindale drag strip closed in 1973. Even the more modern Orange County strip held its last race in 1983. Southern California remains a hotbed for young men and women to customize their cars for either more speed or exotic looks, said Sharp, the museum curator. But he’s not sure they appreciate how drag racing – on sanctioned, commercial drag strips – was once so popular in the area. Today’s car buffs hold shows next to the museum, he said, “and not one of them comes in here because they don’t have a clue that it connects with what they’re doing now. |
Re: Update: Fontana Drag City
[ QUOTE ]
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Fontana3.jpg [/ QUOTE ] Update: USGS topographical map showing exact location and orientation of the strip: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Fontana9.jpg |
Re: Extinct Drag Strip: Riverside
Located 60 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, Riverside Raceway opened in September 1957 with a road course and a drag strip. Known more for its road course, Riverside did host the 1964 Hot Rod Magazine Championship Drag Races and some of the August '64 magazine coverage is shown below. Cancerous urban sprawl finally made its way out to Riverside by the 1980s and the track succumbed to the relentless spread of stucco in 1989.
Located east of the intersection of two freeways, 395 and 60, and just north of March Air Force Base: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Riverside3.jpg USGS topo map image: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Riverside1.jpg Drag strip, shown in orange at bottom, ran toward the north: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...iverside1a.jpg HRM August 1964 coverage: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...tos/HRM864.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Riverside5.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/HRM864-2.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/HRM864-3.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/HRM864-4.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/HRM864-5.jpg Grandstands on west side of track, which can be seen running under the bridge at far right: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/HRM864-7.jpg Top Fuel winner Jack Williams (8.13), far side, defeated Tony Waters who fouled: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/HRM864-6.jpg 1965 photo showing a new GT 350 with the starting line of the strip in the background. View looks east: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Riverside4.jpg The stucco monster finally gobbles up Riverside in this 1988 photo from Wikipedia. View looks east: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Riverside2.jpg |
Re: Update: Fontana Drag City
Great photo of a Dart funny behind the tower at Fontana c66. Photo taken looking north and the grandstands are clearly visible:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...ontanaDart.jpg |
Re: Extnct Drag Strip: The Original Irwindale
Irwindale operated from 1965 until 1977 when the city forced its closure to make room for a Miller Beer brewery. Today's Toyota Raceway at Irwindale, with its 1/8-mile strip and oval, is west of original track site.
New Irwindale 1/8-mile strip location at left and original Irwindale site at right, now a brewery. San Gabriel was just a few miles to the southwest of old Irwindale. Imagine that, two historic dragstrips just a few miles apart! Those guys had it good. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Irwindale3.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Irwindale2.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Irwindale1.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Irwindale5.jpg Photo from Jungle Pam's site: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Irwindale7.jpg |
Re: Extnct Drag Strip: Carlsbad
Carlsbad raceway was just north of San Diego and operated from 1964 until 2004. The Google Earth image shows the track still intact but it has since been completely obliterated by yet another business park. Like we need another frigging business park.
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2.../Carlsbad1.jpg You can see the cancer moving in from the south, the east and the north: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2.../Carlsbad2.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2.../Carlsbad3.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2.../Carlsbad4.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2.../Carlsbad5.jpg |
Re: NY National Speedway
Bad-ass Austin!
[ QUOTE ] http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...evy/syc018.jpg Love the cut wheel arches on that Belvedere! http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...evy/img053.jpg [/ QUOTE ] |
Re: Extinct Drag Strip: Colton
Located along what is now I-10 just west of the town of Colton in western San Bernardino County California, Morrow Field was a small airport used as the Colton Dragstrip. Morrow Field was built in 1942 and by the mid-1950s the runway was being used on weekends for drag racing. When an airplane wanted to land or take-off during the races the drag action would be halted to allow the aircraft to use the runway. By 1980 the USGS topo map showed Morrow Field as abandoned and the land was sold-off for development. For more info on Morrow Field, click here: http://members.tripod.com/airfields_...rnardino_W.htm
Note Fontana Drag City to the west of Colton: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...os/Colton1.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...os/Colton2.jpg Looking closely, the diagonal orientation of the old Morrow Field runway/dragstrip can still be seen: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...os/Colton3.jpg 1954 USGS map showing the highway as 2-lanes each way: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...os/Colton4.jpg 1980 USGS showing Morrow Field as "abandoned." The golf course was built by the orignal airport developer, a Mr. Morrow, for which Morrow Field was named: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...os/Colton5.jpg Found this photo on the HAMB. View looks east: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Colton4a.jpg |
Re: Extinct Drag Strip: Colton
Man-O-Man you guys, I am lovin it! The whole state of California and New York was a drag strip!! Glad I have a lot of old papers and magazines with this stuff in it. https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/imag...ns/worship.gif https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/imag...ins/3gears.gif
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Re: Extinct Drag Strip: Colton
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Re: Update: San Fernando
Since San Fernando, like Fontana and San Gabriel, had a drainage canal alongside the track, occasioanlly a racer would lose it and go under the fence and wind up in the canal. I read a story where Frank Pedregon went down into the canal at San Fernando, climbed out and "played dead" while the ambulance crews struggled to get to him. As they approached he jumped up and let everyone know he was okay. Here's a photo of a racer that had gone into the canal at San Fernando:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...os/Sanfer1.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...os/Sanfer2.jpg |
Re: Extinct Drag Strip: Ontario Motor Speedway
Text from the Ontario City Library site:
"The Ontario Motor Speedway (the Big “O”) was designed as a replica of the 2.5 mile racetrack at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It also had an infield road course and a drag strip to maximize racing events. Designed by Walter Ted Tyler at a cost of $25.5 million, it opened on Sept. 3, 1970 with the inaugural California 500 on Sept. 6. This Labor Day event was to complement the Indy 500 traditionally held on Memorial Day. A second race, the Questor Grand Prix, was held in March 1971 and won by Mario Andretti. 86 separate days of racing, qualifying and practice for championship, sport, stock and drag races was anticipated with over one million persons in attendance per year. Although races were held each year, the actual monies coming in were below expectations. The management tried to improve attendance with three rock concerts – the California Jams I, II and III. Talks took place with promoters of the Expo ’81, a world’s fair-type extravaganza with pavilions on the racetrack grounds. By 1980, the track management company was bankrupt and the City of Ontario sold the property for $10 million to the Chevron Land Management Company. The track was demolished in 1981 at a cost of $3 million. Subsequent development, most recently the Piemonte mixed-use development of condominiums, offices and retail stores and the Citizens Business Bank Arena has largely covered the old racetrack grounds. Echoes still remain in the area’s street signs however: Concours Drive, Mercedes, Ferrari and Triumph Lanes, Porsche Way, Dusenberg and Corvette Drives, Lotus Ave, Shelby Street, Jaguar Way." Note Fontana Drag City at upper right and the new California Speedway: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...hotos/Ont1.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...hotos/Ont2.jpg The asphalt and stucco beast overtakes the site: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...hotos/Ont5.jpg The dragstrip was in the infield at far right: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...hotos/Ont3.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...hotos/Ont4.jpg |
Thank you Mr. Parks
Terrific photo of NHRA founder Wally Parks at Pomona, mid-60s:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...arksPomona.jpg |
Re: Extinct/RESURRECTED Drag Strip: Kingdon
Kingdon drag strip, just southwest of Lodi, California was built as an military auxiliary landing airfield during WWII. As with so many such airstrips, Kingdon lapsed into disuse after the war and then became a public airport and a drag strip by the early 1950s. Racing ended at Kingdon in 1978 but in 2007 Kingdon was host to a reunion drag event so perhaps one of the old strips will be back in use, if only on rare occasions.
Located north of Stockton, southwest of Lodi: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Kingdon1.jpg Very little has changed since WWII: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Kingdon2.jpg Looking west: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Kingdon9.jpg The Sacramento-based "Glass Slipper" made appearances at Kingdon in the late '50s: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Kingdon4.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Kingdon3.jpg As did Garlits in '59 on his first trip to California: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Kingdon6.jpg Even car customizer Gene Winfield tried his hand at the Kingdon drags in the early '50s: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Kingdon5.jpg Back in those much simpler times when any working man could race a car as a weekend hobby and not go broke just trying to have some fun: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Kingdon8.jpg http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...s/Kingdon7.jpg Tommy Ivo at Kingdon c1970 with one of his Cadillac push cars: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2.../Kingdon10.jpg |
Re: Update: Riverside
Great photo of the staring area not long after the track opened in 1957:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...verside1-1.jpg At the '64 HRM Drags Danny Ongais had to push his rail through the 1/4 after his car quit on the line: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...verside3-1.jpg Wild Willie crossed-up (!!!) in the lights trying to stay out of the weeds. Photo taken by Steve Reyes from the old pedestrian bridge across the top end of the track. What's he doing--about 150?--with the front wheels cranked hard left! Friggin' unbelievable!: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...verside2-1.jpg |
Islip Speedway
[b] Islip Speedway was Long Islands 1/8 mile drag strip from 1961 until 1972. But Islip was around much
longer then that, built on the Islip Airport site in 1947 it's 2/10 mile 18 degree banked oval lasted until 1984. It was the home of the first demo race, the first figure 8 race and the NASCAR great's even raced there until the "Modern Era". - - Way back when - - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Family/2r.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Family/3r.jpg - - Islip Speedway today - - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...Family/16r.jpg - - Back in the fifties and sixties you could go to the races practically every night! The drags were Friday at Islip and Sunday at Hampton or National. - - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/Family/1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Family/5r.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Family/6r.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Family/1r.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Family/7r.jpg - - Johnny Rocco was a racer and long time Flagman - - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/15rLarge.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/13rLarge.jpg - - Steve Park got his start at Islip - - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...y/14rLarge.gif - - The drag strip ran from the back edge of the property down between the concession stands and the oval track. There were no concessions at the drags! The 1/8 ended at the oval racers pit entrance and the shut down area ran out into the dirt parking lot. - - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...ily/Clip_4.gif - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...ily/Clip_7.gif - - Tommy Ivo in the pits and coming between the stands and concessions. - - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Family/8r.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Family/9r.jpg - - The starting line - - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...Family/10r.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...Family/12r.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...ily/img064.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img033-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img032-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img031-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img029-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img028-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img027-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img017-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img025-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img091-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img071-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img070-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img059-2.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img046-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img050-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img024-1.jpg - - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img004-1.jpg - http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...5/img009-1.jpg - |
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