My plan was just to post a blog item that Darr Hawthorne sent us about Famoso Raceway’s new for 2012 Saturday Night Nitro Series along with a video from Les Mayhew, but I just couldn’t do it without writing something myself. What Famoso is doing to bring back the sights, sounds, and smells of Nitro to Southern California is epic! We haven’t been able to come to these races this year because of scheduling conflicts, but we will be there next year and get you some live coverage. Until then, read about it, come see the races in person, and watch Les’ KILLER video. This is what drag racing is all about. Under the lights, header flames, and the smell on nitro, it doesn’t get any better.

Blog Item by Darr Hawthorne. Video by Les Mayhew.

What is Old is New Again!

Back in the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s there were dragstrips in every part of Southern California and at many of them there was a Saturday night show, most often with nitro burning racecars.

Over those decades most of the legendary dragstrips were eventually turned into strip malls, business complexes, parking lots or housing developments.  Seventeen miles north of Bakersfield there a track as legendary as Lions, Irwindale, San Fernando, San Gabriel, Riverside or OCIR… it’s Auto Club Famoso Raceway also known as The Patch.

This summer Famoso has successfully rebuilt one of our old school treasures; the Saturday Night Nitro show, where for $20 bucks today’s drag fans can experience what our fathers did on a weekend back in the good old days.

Coming up on September 8 is the third and last Saturday Night Nitro event of the year and by all estimates will probably be the best of 2012.  With over a dozen nostalgia nitro funny cars, front-motored top fuelers, fuel altereds, an A/Fuel Dragster shootout, Jet cars and whatever else shows up at the gate burning the hypnotic nitromethane fuel.  This is an important event as it’ll be one of the last times nostalgia fuel cars can test prior to the season-ending California Hot Rod Reunion so it is tough to predict how many nitro cars will be there.

Earlier this year Saturday Night Nitro events brought some surprises to the Patch with rookie funny car owner/driver Zane Messenger in his “Future Flash 2” Pontiac Firebird flopper took home the winner’s cash at the June event, the car and driver’s first event, ever.  To show his win was no fluke, Messenger runner-upped at the July nighttime show under the lights to James Day in Gary Turner’s “Pedaler” Plymouth Arrow nitro funny car.

As a bonus, the fast door cars of the West Coast Hot Rod Association will kick off the show Saturday at noon racing down the all-concrete Famoso quarter mile in the afternoon and into the cooler nighttime air.  Nitro cars will run at 8pm, 10pm and at midnight with the funny cars in a Chicago-style elimination format.

The crowds have also been building as word spreads about the fun of Saturday Night Nitro with an estimated 2,600 spectators for the June race growing to an estimated 3,100 in July.  For $20 bucks, and kids twelve and under admitted for FREE, September 8th will be a truckload of fun.  The first 1,000 Kids also get a free funny car poster so they can gather driver’s autographs to decorate their bedroom walls or dad can hang in the garage.  To give Bang Shifters a flavor, here’s a Les Mayhew video from the July Saturday Night Nitro at Famoso:

For Tickets and Scheduling Visit FamosoRaceway.com