We’re happy to report that Samoa Drag Strip in Eureka, California which was attacked and damaged by vandals in the fall will reopen for 2015 and serve the racing community in the Eureka area. We learned this information from Dwight Callaway of NorCal Racing an organization that works to protect and preserve the sport in northern California. While not directly affiliated with Samoa Drag Strip, the group stepped up to the plate and created a GoFundMe page for the track and that page raised enough money to cover the repairs necessary after vandals broke into the facility and tore up the wiring and did other damage. In an email from Dwight he said, “Although we are not affiliated with Samoa Drag Strip, we wanted to provide you with a brief follow-up regarding the vandalism. Nor Cal Drag Racing actually started a Go Fund Me campaign (http://www.gofundme.com/repairsamoa) to help raise monies to cover the needed repairs. To date, the campaign has raised over $2500 for Samoa Dragstrip. That money, along with monies raised throughout the Northern California drag racing community, will allow Samoa to make the necessary repairs in time for the 2015 race season. It would be appreciated if you could let BangShift.com readers know that Samoa is alive and well for 2015!”

This is great news and in many ways it is far more important news than the bomb that was dropped the other day about Al-Anabi Racing shutting off the money tap to their drag racing teams here in the USA. Strips like Samoa are the legitimate lifeblood of the sport. Yes, top fuel and professional racing are the pinnacle and it is important to have a mountain that aspiring people can climb to help advance the technology and future of the competition but there’s no discussion if they do not have a place to first foster those dreams. Listen, Dale Armstrong was a car guy who started to beat on a crummy old jalopy as a kid and turned that experience into legend. Every guy you see turning the screws on a car professionally started at a place like Samoa. The kids that race the junior dragsters, the guys that pound on their bracket cars when the gates are open, these are the people that are truly important to the health and well-being of drag racing as a whole and that is why this story makes us smile a whole lot more than the other one made us frown. It is kind of like when Donald Trump goes “bankrupt”. No one really gives a rat’s batoot because why would they. When the same scenario is applied to someone in your community who has fallen on bad luck or suffered some sort of trauma to be in that state, it is a different deal entirely.

A huge BangShifty THANK YOU to everyone from NorCal Racing, and everyone that threw some money in the pot to get Samoa Drag Strip fixed up and running again. You’ve done a service that is hard to actually define in size and scope. Perhaps one of those kids that will be hitting the strip this summer will someday climb the mountain and remember their formative years in drag racing at the lush, green track in Eureka, California. Good on you!

Although we are not affiliated with Samoa Drag Strip, we wanted to provide you with a brief follow-up regarding the vandalism. Nor Cal Drag Racing actually started a Go Fund Me campaign (http://www.gofundme.com/repairsamoa) to help raise monies to cover the needed repairs. To date, the campaign has raised over $2500 for Samoa Dragstrip. That money, along with monies raised throughout the Northern California drag racing community, will allow Samoa to make the necessary repairs in time for the 2015 race season. It would be appreciated if you could let BangShift.com readers know that Samoa is alive and well for 2015!

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