The property is primarily used for NASCAR races such as ARCA Menards Series West and Whelen All-American Series events. Dragstrip Hot: 4:00 pm. In late 2012, Jim Cohan, who ran the LA Driving Experience at the track was able to secure funding to re-open the speedway under his management. And it has a dragstrip-a working, operating track that hasn't changed one iota since it started running sometime in the '50s. The Irwindale Event Center, which encompasses the Irwindale Speedway and the 1/8-mile Irwindale Dragstrip, opened its doors in the Los Angeles, California, suburb in 1999 and has since played host to countless motorsports events, from NASCAR oval racing to Formula D drifting events. Burnout Box Hot: 6:00 pm. The former still operates as a small private airport in the middle of cornfields, and former racers started holding an annual reunion there, on the track, about five years ago. But (surprise, surprise) when I drove around to the backside, on a dirt road under new freeway overpasses, I walked across the railroad tracks and looked over a fence-and there were the pits, complete with all the little shade trees and the return road, lying fallow. “Hook sent me” was your admission ticket on May 17. Now get this: He built his house at the edge of the track, about halfway down, and used the dragstrip as a runway for his private plane, so he could taxi right to his front door. irwindale raceway 1970. Lett, a Team Associated professional driver and one of the designers and developers of the aforementioned RC10, set the record with a heavily modified Associated RC10L3 touring car at Irwindale Speedway on January 13, 2001. Drag Racing History - A Tale Of Two Anglias Q. He even staged four jet cars side-by-side! Gibbs said the track was built and run by the Tice brothers, who ran a nearby meat market. The Pond is still right there, ditch and all. Who really knows why all the dragstrips of California-and elsewhere-went away. When Drag Sport Illustrated was first published (March 1963), the initial offerings were available only at the drag strip. There were two San Gabriel Valley dragstrips, one which ran from 1956 to 1958 and the other, on a different site, from 1961 to 1963, plus … It was when the sport emerged from the back yards and garages of America and relocated to the speed and auto specialty shops that had sprung up all over the country … And I don't recommend the bathrooms. Right across the 605 freeway is the new Irwindale Speedway with its eighth-mile dragstrip. The company that manages the track, Irwindale Speedway LLC, filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy on February 13, 2012.[2]. While car-based sanctioning bodies clearly helped popularize motorcycle drag racing, the sport needed its own voice. I have been looking at some of my old photos and found some of the old Irwindale Drags from 1966. Dave Scully, who was announcer/ manager there for a time, said the track paid $25-$50 to name cars in tow money, sometimes $250 to qualify for class, and $500-$1,000 for Top Eliminator. I don't think anybody has made any improvements to it since it was built. The track is currently running the 2017 season. Blackie leased the facility, but toward the end the owner/builder was getting old and feeble. Part One. The 2003 Guinness Book of World Records lists the fastest-ever top speed of a radio-controlled car as 111 mph (178.63 km/h) set by Cliff Lett of Associated Electrics. Saved by Todd Childress. The point of this article is that it wasn't necessarily because of rampant urban development. Irwindale Speedway TV is the place to find full coverage racing action from weekly Oval events to Night of Destruction. Though Blackie had first dibs to buy it, a shyster got to the old man and bought all 60 acres for a pittance. In a monthly series in the magazine's Straight Scoop column, Car Craft has been running photos sent in by readers of still-existing but abandoned dragstrips in all parts of the country, and that's been going on for more than three years. Though it's been kept up by current management, it hasn't changed much since it was built in the early '60s. Perhaps the most amazing "still there" story is Raisin City, which is a very small agricultural town about 12 miles southwest of Fresno. types of promotions-it also succumbed to community development after closing in 1983. 6-5-21 Super Saturday – TestNTune & Burnout Box. Blackie was always booking in name cars to draw crowds to this remote location in the middle of the San Joachin Valley vineyards. But if you want a pure '60s dragstrip experience, go to Carlsbad today. Swift was an Irwindale Track Champion in 1966, 1967, and 1968. A whole lot of open gravel and a big electric power substation. Drag racing began on the long, straight backstretch of Riverside Raceway in 1957 and lasted until 1969. When I was young I could go to sleep on Sat. Even the giant racetrack sign, on two tall poles next to the 60 freeway, is still standing, though blank. The Official Irwindale Raceway History Group is dedicated to Irwindale Raceway; not Irwindale Speedway, Irwindale Dragstrip, Toyota Speedway, or even Pomona, OCIR, Lions, San Gabriel (either one), etc. It cost more than $10 million. It wasn't much as a physical plant, but one of its owners/builders was Harry Snider, the founder of In-N-Out burgers. All footage filmed and unedited by Doug Hayes. My father will kill me." Sunday! The 1/8-mile drag racing strip opened on September 29, 2001. Sunday! The venue is also known for drifting events; when it hosted D1 Grand Prix's first overseas event in 2003, with a sell-out crowd attendance of 10,000, it had surpassed all other events Irwindale hosted in the past, the previous being 8,700. Right across the 605 freeway is the new Irwindale Speedway with its eighth-mile dragstrip. It may well be the most famous and photographed concession stand in drag race history, showing up in the background behind superstar racers burning rubber at Irwindale Raceway in … Orange County International Raceway was built as a premium drag racing facility, complete with its landmark three-story hexagonal timing tower, next to the I-5 freeway in Irvine in 1967. Of course, you had to have name cars to get spectators to come. By clicking Sign Up, you agree to the Terms of Use. In this event, the top 30 drivers in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series and the top 40 drivers in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series come from their respective regional tours to compete in a "best-of-the-best" race. Because of its popularity, the circuit is nicknamed the House of Drift. I understand the property has recently been sold again, but the entire track is still there, with paved pits, and even the timing tower, today. It was reputedly the first dragstrip to have guardrails, which supposedly scared many dragster drivers. [3] For the past decade, the Formula D Championship Series has featured sold out events at the venue. The Grand Premiere was moved to Irwindale in 1973 and kicked off Steve Evans’ management of the newly refurbished facility, and the 1974 … Nitro Revival has ‘em ‘hooked’ on drag racing history. But if you want a '50s drag race experience today, go to Inyokern. In September 2013, the property housing the Irwindale Event Center was purchased by Irwindale Outlet Partners, LLC for $22 million. Still run by the Dust Devils club-spearheaded by NHRA big-wig Bernie Patridge-it operates today on a regular basis from December to June. In most cases, this is the last acreage to be developed. Sat 04/10/2021 - Sun 04/11/2021 PROMOTER: IRWINDALESPEEDWAY Track Closes: 10:00 pm. [7][8], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}34°6′34″N 117°59′17″W / 34.10944°N 117.98806°W / 34.10944; -117.98806, Irwindale Speedway as it was prepared for the 2006 Toyota All-Star Showdown. They booked in many name cars from SoCal and NorCal, as well as traveling cars from around the country. It was also seen in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, titled "Stock Car Races" and also used in the opening scene of the pilot episode of Fastlane. It was gated, but I was told it is occasionally used on weekends for go-karts and model airplanes. 64 Funny Cars. This racecourse did ultimately succumb to development as the tiny towns of Sunnymead and Edgemont swelled into the bedroom community of Moreno Valley. Great Lakes/ Rockford Dragways. Special thanks to Tom West & Steve Reyes, for shooting the Nanook stills, at the same time my father Ray Renfro shot this footage. Host of Thursday Night Thunder, where for just $30 you can bring your car for open Test and Tune. It opened on March 27, 1999 under the official name Irwindale Speedway. DSI was a highly esteemed publication at the time due to the quality of its photography. The races were televised live on the Speed Channel. The old Irwindale was quite well known among locals for having the best track burgers anywhere (they were In-N-Out burgers without the tomato). The campaign is raising money to give a family the opportunity to experience positive family moments with an all-inclusive trip to Walt Disney World. … U S 30 Run Tuff Championships- blue. Event Date: June 5, 2021. Harry Hibler ran the track before he became publisher of HOT ROD, and a pre-HRM-staffer Dave Wallace sold programs at the gate (while his father flipped burgers in the concession stand). [1], The speedway features banked, paved 1/2- and 1/3-mile oval tracks and a 1/8-mile drag strip. In 2015, plans were made to demolish Irwindale Speedway and build an outlet mall on the site of the track. Irwindale Speedway LLC has two more outstanding personal injury claims with unknown values. Another reason for the demise of Riverside was the opening of the new, state-of-the-art super track at Ontario, in the middle of what were once sprawling vineyards, in 1970. On Sundays, they weren't allowed to run open headers until after noon, in deference to nearby churches. Located in an area of gravel pits along what was the San Gabriel River, it opened in 1956 but had to be moved once when the riverbed was made into a flood channel. Points - Division 7 World Championship Finals - Irwindale Raceway. San Gabriel Valley Top Fuel Dragster Drag Cars Go To Sleep Drag Racing Back In The Day Hot Cars Brewery Old School. As of 2016, the track is still open for business. 1964 Beeline Dragway. Go … 24.99. "We paid money for cars to come. 01-27-2015, 08:15 PM #2 Two huge meets were held there in 1959. Summit ET / JDRL April 11th at Irwindale Dragstrip. One of his duties was reporting on weekend races for Drag News. Its origin is disputed. It's a time warp. Your information will be collected and used in accordance with our Privacy Policy, The Lost Dragstrips Of Southern California. Nite and hear them race. They tore the track out, leaving the dirt berms there, beside the I-10, for nearly two decades. Most people in California have never heard of the place. 36,155 were here. In 2003, in cooperation with local law enforcement, Irwindale Speedway opened its own dragstrip and hosts legal drag races for street-legal cars, trucks, and motorcycles. You still can. In the end, this vicious economic circle didn't work, and the track closed. What's there now? In the case of the Ramona track, also known as San Diego Raceway, it was an instance of being too remote. You couldn't be any farther away from anything." … In 2012, Irwindale Speedway LLC, the management group that ran the track, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on the same day track management canceled the 2012 racing season. One weekend a frantic Bob Muravez (driver of the twin-engine Freight Train dragster), stuck his head in the booth and told Steve, "You can't use my real name. Hot Wheels Drag the Champions. The track in Irwindale was popular, even being home to the Toyota All-Star Showdown for several years. There is also a debt of $8,093.51 owed to the city of Irwindale Police Department, $16,379.58 owed to the Golden State Water Company and $1,437.50 owed to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune for advertising. Most strips were built in pretty remote areas-for obvious reasons-in the first place. Gates Open 3 PM: Track is Hot 4PM-10PM. (This was our favorite street-racing location when I was a kid because there were long, straight roads with nothing around for miles.) After a long, healthy, and varied racing career-including the infamous "Sunday! There's one very small bleacher; no timing stand; two outhouses; and one old Cadillac ambulance that looks like it hasn't run in years. The speedway features banked, paved 1/2- and 1/3-mile oval tracks and a 1/8-mile drag strip. Drag racing never had a consistent schedule at Riverside, and the length of the track varied from quarter-mile to half-mile. In January 2013, it was announced that the track would be re-opening as the Irwindale Event Center, and would operate as a Whelen All-American Series venue for the 2013 season. Think about it. Unreal. Los Angeles County Raceway, in the high desert near Palmdale, has Armco guardrails, small rickety stands and timing shack, and recently paved dirt pits and parking. Irwindale Raceway Grand Prix of Drag Racing. Today part of it is an airplane junkyard. Two tracks, both called San Gabriel Valley Dragstrip, operated from 1958-58 and 1961-63 under separate managements and at two locations. The track itself was soon replaced by a string of chrome and glass office buildings. Hart, Don Rackemann, the SCTA, and even this magazine, which sponsored the huge HOT ROD Magazine Drags from 1964-1969. It was also the home of the Turkey Night Grand Prix race, a Thanksgiving midget car racing tradition in southern California since 1934, when the race debuted at Gilmore Stadium. The circuit is regarded as one of the most popular courses for crowds and drivers despite the unforgiving concrete wall which drivers usually brush through with their rear bumpers. The Ontario Motor Speedway was a banked oval for NASCAR and Indy-type cars, with a dragstrip along pit road, where the new NHRA Supernationals were held. The track is back on the NASCAR Home Tracks schedule running a bi-weekly schedule for 2013 and up to the present. We had to. In fact, this seems to be the case nationwide. To establish a set of records, Irwindale Raceway in Southern California promoted the First Annual U.S. Fuel and Gas Motorcycle Nationals in March of 1970. In late 2011, NASCAR announced it was dropping Toyota Speedway from its schedule. But the whole rest of the operation is dirt. The 'Golden Age of Drag Racing', a period of time roughly from 1959 to 1974, was an era when the front engine slingshot, both gasoline and nitromethane powered, dominated the drag racing headlines. An amazing trip down memory lane. "They were butchers, but they were pretty dynamic promoters." Gates Open: 3:00 pm. I don't recommend it for really fast cars. 24.99. In the early days, Partridge was an NHRA regional director, and he got the NHRA to stage regional points meets there. Surviving on rock concerts, fireworks shows, and such, OMS lasted until 1980. Another popular and busy SoCal strip was San Gabriel, or Old San Gabe. The 1/8-mile drag racing strip opened on September 29, 2001. (Associated Press Photo/Long Photography) It was a square mile of solid concrete, and the traction was so good it broke a lot of drivelines. Irwindale Speedway, Irwindale Dragstrip, or "The House of Drift") is a motorsports facility located in Irwindale, California, United States. During those years, he won First place 59 times and runner-up 11 times, more than anyone in the history of the strip. I think my favorite of all was the little red wagon, because my dad had a red truck just like it but it was only a six banger and didn't do wheeles. The lease for the Irwindale Event Center continued on a year-by-year basis. The dragstrip was not a runway, but there it sits, in perfect condition. Irwindale Speedway, as it looked overhead from its opening on March 27, 1999. The largest amount is $150,000 owed on a personal-injury claim. Toyota purchased the naming rights to the facility in 2008, and from that time until 2011 it was also known as the Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. Irwindale was a track that definitely died as a result of local development: In 1977 the city of Irwindale bought the property and basically gave it to the Miller Brewing Co. He did this several times. Early life and Career. The name “Irwindale” first appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. Another little-known-but still existing-strip once operated in Holtville, about halfway between San Diego and Yuma. 3. Being the closest track to Burbank and Studio City, it was seen in nearly all the '50s hot rod B movies such as Dragstrip Girl and Dragstrip Riot, often with racers banging wheels, or even with a pack of cars racing off the end of the strip, through the hills of (sort of) nearby Griffith Park, then back to the start/finish line at the strip. 15. 24.99. But think about it: In 1970 tens of thousands of young men were in Vietnam, hot rods were being replaced by VW buses with flowers on them, and drag racing was turning Pro on big NHRA tracks. Toyota purchased the naming rights to the facility in 2008, and from that time until 2011 it was also known as the Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. As I began to show last month, it just ain't so. It’s hard to get any cooler than this old Lions Drag Strip logo with its roaring lion and dragster illustration. The dragstrip is proud to extinguish the "nowhere else to go" excuse used by illegal street racers, and local police often hand out flyers to offenders for free entry into drag races at the dragstrip to promote safe racing and has re-opened. What happened to it? From 2003 to 2010, the main 1/2-mile oval hosted the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown. Nitro Revival 3 was billed as a one-day only event on the 18th, but the 17th was set-up day so participants could get their cars in place at the Irwindale (California) Speedway and Event Center. About the Track: Irwindale Dragstrip offers a 1/8th Mile NHRA sanctioned dragstrip with a concrete starting box and featuring a 1/2 mile run-out. In March 2015, plans were made to demolish Irwindale Speedway and replace it with Irwindale Outlet Center, an outlet mall, but the closure has been delayed. In my search for the locations of former SoCal strips, I was astounded to find, in approximately nine out of ten cases, that the settings were still bare, vacant land or-as in the case of Ramona-the former track is still right there, with weeds growing through it. One theory holds that the city was named after a man whose last name was Irwin, who introduced a gasoline-powered pump to the area’s residents and then swindled them out of their rights to the San Gabriel River. Carlsbad, believe it or not, was considered a "super track" when it was built by former dual-exhaust king and Indy team owner Sandy Belond in 1964. Browse 47 san gabriel valley raceway stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. Mega thanks to Nightwing398963, for the use of his family's home movies. Common knowledge says this track was closed because of noise complaints from neighbors. But here's the kicker. Located at the Inyokern airport (you can get commercial flights in), it may have once been a taxi-way, but sits over on one side and appears purpose-built, and well-maintained. On August 9, 2017 it was officially announced that Jim Cohan, CEO of Team 211 Entertainment, who operates the track under the name of Irwindale Event Center, would cease operation. Irwindale Speedway LLC owed Nu-Way Industries Inc., the company that owns the property where the track and offices are built, $55,000 in rent. As I mentioned last month, of the six or so tracks still operating in all of California, only two are modern facilities (Pomona and Sears Point-now called Infineon Raceway). Since then, it has become the series regular opening round in February and a non championship event in December and has also hosted a round of the domestic series, Formula D. The venue has been expanded to accommodate 15,000 spectators. This is where Steve Gibbs got his first full-time job, and by 1968 they asked him to be track manager. Silent, no audio. The latter I discovered way around at the back of the current Santa Maria airport. [5] On August 9th, 2017, Cohan made an announcement in an e-mailed statement saying that the track was closing down officially in January 2018. The track was built in 1963 and operated through 1967. Night of Fire!" From street legal to full blown race vehicles, bring out your car or bike and spend your Saturday at Irwindale Dragstrip and Burnout Box!! How in the world did a dragstrip get here-and manage to survive all these years? A drag strip in Irwindale met the development monster. It ran uphill in a big paved lot next to a drainage ditch in a fairly populous area of the Valley. Steve Evans (January 13, 1942 – November 1, 2000) was an American motorsports broadcaster with a career that spanned four decades.. So that's how Muravez became Floyd Lippencotte Jr. at San Gabe. There once was a time, long, long ago, when local police departments, civic groups like Lions clubs, and, yes, even this magazine worked to build and support racetracks to get racing hot rodders off the street and give them a safe, legal place to run. The top end still sits there, fenced off. Now a brewery is there. This opened the door for local west coast tracks like Lions and Irwindale to schedule AA/GS meets on a regular schedule. U S 30 Dragstrip Run Tuff Championships- red.
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