(Photos by Cole Reynolds) Despite all the bitching and moaning that everyone does about not having dragstrips anymore, most places have more than ever. Here in Southern California everyone gripes about not having places to race, but the truth is we have Auto Club Dragway in Fontana, Barona Dragstrip, Irwindale, and Auto Club Famoso Raceway near Bakersfield. It’s funny, because people act like Bakersfield is so far away, when I can drive to it in approximately the same amount of time it takes to get to LAX in traffic. Go figure. But the newest addition to the drag racing world in SoCal is Fontana’s Wednesday Night Drags. Like the weekly Thursday Night Drags at Irwindale, Fontana’s setup require mufflers and is designed primarily for street cars to come out and have a good time. They do have a staging lane just for Junior Dragsters who want to come test, and you can also come out and do licensing runs with a staging lane just for that as well. If you come out early, when the gates open at 4pm like we did, you can get several runs in early and have some fun. The crowd really starts showing up after 6:30 and there are usually between 100 and 250 cars on site. I’d say the average is in the 150-175 range which means LOTS of runs for everyone who attends. We came out with our friend Trevor Hayes to watch him make a couple test hits in his Camaro before a big bracket race coming up. A new carb, new front shocks, and a couple other tweaks meant he needed a hit or two to see how this thing was going to run. And run it did! We were joined by Derek and Dustin Lamb, from Lamb Components, who sat around telling lies and talking smack with the rest of us!
We had fun watching Trevor, and Cole grabbed some shots of some of the other cars there before the adults started enjoying adult beverages and bench racing with our buddies. It was a great time had by all.
Special thanks to the Auto Club Dragway staff, including Track Manager Tracy Fischle, who always put on a great event with a smile. Tracy is a great dude and Otis the shop dog LOVES him.
Some of my best drag racing memories are from Wednesday Nights at Fremont Drag Strip (Baylands) in the ’70s-’80s, good times were had by all. Having a couple places locally in SoCal must be nice. Living in the East Bay area (NoCal) it is tough to get off work and get to Sonoma for there Wednesday night drags,traffic and distance more often then not make it undoable.