Sonoma Drag Racing Program ,,,bye..bye - CLASS RACER FORUM
Sonoma Drag Racing Program ,,,bye..bye Stock and Super Stock
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Sonoma
- Thread starter Cliff
- Start date
Jay, Ontario was worse. I used to bring my binoculars to that track. It was an oval track, so grandstands were aways from the track & really high up. You could see the entire oval from the top rows. They did have a pit side grandstand, not real big, but you could see the cars there a lot better. One year they had a "Hang Over Nationals" on Jan 1st & ran T/F & F/C. It could get windy there. I saw Garlits run that famous 5.63 - 250 in 1975. The drag strip got worse as time went by and wasn't real quick when the track closed. The drag strip had been very level & smooth when they started running & it had teeth when they glued it (1974 & 1975 were bets years I think).
Professional Fan
Nitro Member
Agree on Sonoma which is my home track. I sit in 4th row of reserved grandstand and can only see the top half of the bikes when they run.
ocdart
Nitro Member
Cliff, the drag strip at Ontario was actually the oval track front straightaway pit road. My family had season seats on the top row of the infield grandstands for a couple of years after Ontario first opened in 1970. Those grandstands and the drag strip view for the Supernationals were great.
And Ontario had the greatest return road ever if you should happen to lose a chute or brakes. I saw a TF car (don['t remember who the driver was) that had the chutes malfunction continue on past the end of the dragtrip to the transition road to the oval and ended up on Turn One of the oval before he coasted to a stop. If he'd had enough momentum he could have continued all the way around the 2.5-mile oval.
ZWeinstein
Nitro Member
The main grandstand yes, but the east side grandstands might be the closest of the tracks I've been to, maybe Pomona is a bit closer but I'm not sure.
I've been four times and I think the only time I sat there was the first year I went and it just felt way too far away. It's the same way in Vegas with the extra two lanes.
Hi Ken. I knew the drag strip was the pit road. Gotta wonder what the oval track racers thought about all the rubber on that road. heh But it was really level & made for a great drag strip. I remember driving there from Glendale & I think it was around 2 hours by freeway. Was really a cool place to be; was so impressed with that track. Never went to a race there except the drags.
ocdart
Nitro Member
The oval track races were super cool. As a kid growing up in SoCal I would always listed to the Indy 500 on the radio (remember, no live TV coverage back then) and dreamed of someday going to the race at Indy. Then, all of a sudden, the Indy cars were right here in SoCal!
The best oval track race that I remember was the year they did the "Twin 200s"...200 miles of NASCAR and then 200 miles of Indy cars on the same day. It was great. The first time I ever saw NASCAR live.
But for a true sensory overload nothing beats Top Fuel and Funny Cars.
I used to listen to Indy 500 on the radio when I was a kid. The announcers were good & I could picture the race in my mind. I think I started listening when I was 11 or 12 years old I remember Rodger Ward winning Indy, 1959. The big stock car racer I remembered was Fireball Roberts, cuz of the name I guess.
Ramjet
Nitro Member
Cliff - WHAT were you driving, a Cannonball Run car
. From Brand Blvd. to the gate at Sonoma it's 395 miles, about 5 1/2 hours on today's freeways. Used to take us over six hours towing from Reseda with one fuel and P stop. Your right though the facility was and is a very nice place.
The one time I went to Sonoma that's where I sat all weekend and we were on top of the track, loved the seats.
Cliff - WHAT were you driving, a Cannonball Run car
Sorry, I meant driving from Glendale to Ontario. Never went to Sonoma. By the way, didn't live too far from Brand Blvd. Had an apt once that was 1/2 block from Glendale Speed, probably 1971 or so. I tried to find out if Glendale Speed is still in business, but gather that it closed some years ago. Guy who started it was Armenian. I wonder if he knew Big John Mazmanian & The Armenian Army.
