Irwindale Closing?

Their website is down, not a good sign. I wonder what it would take to organize a legal street race up in Kern country or the Antelope Valley somewhere?
 
Antelope Valley wouldn't be bad, but where? Qualcomm and Barona are pretty much it other than Fontana (with their 8 hour waits for 2 or 3 passes).
 
Wow, that place is always packed. That really sucks.

Garrett

Probably getting paid at work to post this from my D1
 
Another reason not to live there. The SoCal people won't have anywhere to race pretty soon, the Fontana track sucks, and like said hours of waiting. Qualcom and Barona are both in San Diego aren't they, I've been to Barona, nice little track.
 
Drag racing was born on the west coast...looks like it's gonna die there too.
 
Bob Wagner said:
Bremerton WA track shut down too.
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That's too bad about Bremerton, always looked like a pretty good local crowd showe up. Weather was always iffy and track prep wasn't the greatest. Glad that Spokane reopened.
 
UNBROKEN said:
Drag racing was born on the west coast...looks like it's gonna die there too.
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We've still got Portland, Woodburn, Medford and Madras. I think the little 1/8 mile track at Coos Bay is still open, not sure about the 1/8 mile in Lakeview.
 
Yup, Lakeview is still open as is Coos Bay, plus there is a new 1/8-mile all concrete track in Walla Walla, and Yakima is under new ownership. There is a brand new track opening near Olympia this year, which is part of why people aren't sweating the loss of Bremerton that much. I think Bremerton is going to keep running until the road construction forces it to close though, so we probably have a couple more seasons there. Medford is up in the air again though, as I heard the most recent operator backed out of his lease this year. It was just as well, as he made a few enemies by adjusting "guaranteed" payouts after the fact (kinda like a certain defunct diesel organization), but I hope someone steps up and runs the place! There are rumors that whoever reopens Medford will do it as an IHRA track, I hope that is true as I would like to see IHRA give NHRA some competition around here. BTW, the NHRA tracks were hit with another new "fee" this year, something like $3500, not the end of the world but the straw that broke a few of their backs!
 
well maybe they can get through it and at least reopen the drag strip. Are the drags well attended? With no more than there are in SoCal I would think they would be. Don't care for 1/8 mile but it better than nothing.
 
They get a lot of cars out there on a given night for street legals, just as a guess I'd say 150 or better on average. Quite a few people in the stands too.
 
Half of the debt from an accident, I bet that was the one on 2/24/2011. Car got a stuck throttle when the driver hit the throttle in gear to clear the engine, and the car went through the pits and into the staging lanes at WOT, or close to it. I don't think anyone was seriously hurt, but I think a girl got her leg broken, and there was a lot of property damage. You think the track would have insurance that would just cover stuff like that. I know about 25 years ago a Northern California dragstrip in Oroville was shut down because a guy wrecked his car and then sued.
 
JQmile said:
Half of the debt from an accident, I bet that was the one on 2/24/2011.
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I'll bet it was, too. The very next week they had k-rails lined up to separate the pits from the staging lanes, replacing those portable galvanized steel fences.
 
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