Lost Drag Strips II: More Ghosts of Quarter-Miles Past

INTRODUCTION

In the Terminology Hall of Fame, cliché wears its title as a badge of longevity. You can only earn cliché status by outliving the usefulness of lesser, decidedly trendier adjectives. Here’s a typical tired-but-true example: There can only be one original. That phrase surely applies to Tommy Lee Byrd’s award-winning Lost Drag Strips, a guide to quarter-mile battlefields lost to elapsed times across America. Byrd not only exposes the remains of those lost racetracks but tells the stories of how they came to be, details the glory of their heydays, and gives directions to which shopping center parking lot to look under in hopes of digging up a glimpse of high-velocity history. That’s how you make a masterpiece.

Byrd’s concept captured the fancy of drag fans grayhaired and prepubescent. Readers gobbled up the stories, traded them among themselves like folk songs, and demanded more. Tommy Lee Byrd has recently been blessed with a new sprout from the family tree and is currently up to his helmet in SFI 3.2A/15-spec pacifiers and diapers. So the sequel was gifted to me. This is the assignment I’ve been waiting for since my teenage street racing career began in the mid-1960s.

The street scene eventually delivered me to a sanctioned drag strip in 1973. From that day, my quest was to race on every strip in the continental United States. That goal remains unfulfilled (by about a hundred strips), but being entrusted to tell the tale of America’s abandoned drag race facilities is an equally humbling honor and challenge that I take to heart.

Agreed, there can be only one original, so I shall pay respect to Byrd by letting his voice echo, as my own speaks to some of the history that Tommy Lee couldn’t squeeze into his 175 pages that feature an ambitious 28 drag strips. A thousand pages wouldn’t be enough. Yet there is some overlap of the territory covered by both Byrd and me. Surprising, considering how many drag strips have dotted the map. In 1965, there were 130 strips operating under NHRA sanction alone, in 42 of the 50 United States. The AHRA, IHRA, UDRA, and even NASCAR were sanctioning yet more strips, and wildcat outlaw facilities filled in any available gaps. That’s a lot of drag strips. All linger blissfully in someone’s memory. The surviving witnesses to their history are becoming fewer in number daily. Here you will read their accounts, illustrated with the perspective of each time and region, and documented with photographs long forgotten in sticky desk drawers, folded into overstuffed wallets, or cavalierly tossed into grimy toolboxes.

Tommy Lee presented a pretty comprehensive history lesson to introduce his text, leaving me little to add but this relatively brief overview. The logical next step was a leap-offaith free fall into the vast web of drag strip lore spun by racers and fans from across America. One tale led to another, ultimately spawning this son of Lost Drag Strips. It’s a curious pit stop in drag racing’s pretzeled odyssey, where past, present, and future collide in a glorious and enlightening release of long-stored energy. May that buzz propagate into future generations and keep the railbirds, pit rats, and bleacher bums jawing. That, after all, is how history is preserved and taught.

A precious handful of lost drag strips have managed to come back from the dead. Some of these zombie tracks are featured here as rare glimmers of hope to juxtapose the ghastly ends that so many strips have met at the hands of progress. Even more ghastly, we paid a steep price of admission to drag racing’s Golden Era in the form of hard lessons learned regarding safety. Examples of that learning curve have not been omitted here, in the name of full disclosure.

So then, how to approach a subject that spans such a prodigious timeframe in a geographic area as vast as the United States of America? The dart thrown at the U.S. map landed on the left coast, so we’ll start there and work our way east, loosely backtracking the trail blazed by Lewis and Clark. Or was it Garlits and Malone?

Just a reminder that all is not lost. Famoso Raceway produces as much noise and smoke today as it did on opening day in 1952, when Bakersfield, California’s Smokers Club opened the gates to a gaggle of rail jobs and hordes of production cars. More than 63 years later, dragsters remain the tsars of Famoso, despite being vastly outnumbered by doorslammers. Such respect has kept historical perspective intact at Bakersfield. (Scotty Gosson Photo)

CHAPTER 1

WEST COAST

The Pacific shore has long been celebrated in story and song as the birthplace of hot rodding. Pop culture history swears drag racing was invented there. Perhaps. Those claims may be perceived differently, east of California. What is known as fact is that the immediate post–World War II era spawned an unprecedented surge of passion for all things fast and loud, across the country. A nation of speed addicts proceeded with an epic game of catch-up on VJ Day that played out on every paved surface of the United States, some of which happened to be on the West Coast.

In fact, the densely populated western states host distractions from natural wonders to industry and entertainment that outnumber any high-performance automotive activities by a million to one. In spite of such diversions, West Coast residents managed to amass an enormous hot rod culture in an astonishingly short time span. As drag racing went epidemic after the war, western strips were cut from mountain forestland, desert sagebrush, ocean-view properties, and flat valley floors from Canada to Mexico. The race was on. As for who was first, well, that debate rages on to this day. The bottom line, of course, is which tracks are still standing today, and what happened to the rest.

On the set of Bikini Beach at Pomona with TV Tommy Ivo’s AA/Fuel Dragster. It doesn’t get any more California than this. Tommy recalls his role in Bikini Beach with the Stellings & Hampshire AA/Fuel Dragster: "When Don Rickles [playing ‘Big Drag’] flag-started Don Prudhomme and me, he had never even heard a dragster run before. They rolled the cameras, Rickles whipped the flag, and we baptized him in a tidal wave of smoke and thunder. As the smoke cleared, he threw down the flag and yelled, ‘I quit!’

The director found this so amusing, he worked the gag into the scene, with Rickles standing there in the smoke with his cap all sideways and his coveralls torn and covered with explosion spots. It got a good laugh from the audience when I saw it. I think the girl [in this photo] was just visiting the set. Also in the film, a monkey drove my four-engine car. So, the movie wasn’t too far over the top …" (Photo Courtesy Tommy Ivo)

AVENUE G DRAG STRIP

Gerald Fanger flags off Dee Hillberry and Monty Wray’s T roadsters on Avenue G. Note the remnants of Army pillboxes at the road’s edge. Wray’s Olds-powered ’27 was featured in the January 1959 issue of Rod & Custom and appeared again in October 1962. (Photo 87787, Courtesy Southern Oregon Historical Society)

White City, Oregon

1955–1961

Current Status: ➤ COUNTY ROAD

Avenue G is a nickname that stuck. Newspaper accounts referencing the track alternated between Camp White Drag Strip and White City Drag Strip, but it was Avenue G from day-one to the people who played there. Avenue G ran straight through the Camp White Army base, which bordered the southern Oregon town of Medford, prompting the obvious question: How to conduct timed drag races on a municipal/military main thoroughfare without spending the night in the pokey?

Lifelong area racer Cal Lanfear supplies the not-so-obvious answer, The police blocked off the street with barriers. We didn’t need guardrails because the street had 20-foot-wide shoulders and 4-foot-deep ditches down both sides. You were literally in deep trouble if you got out of the groove there, but no cars could get to the spectators. Police barricades on Avenue G carried signage reading, Road Closed. Drag Race in Progress. Otherwise, Avenue G never had a sign, yet never suffered an identity crisis.

Camp White was operational from 1941 to 1945, hosting 40,000 troops and a number of German POWs. After the war, hundreds of Camp White’s buildings served as the Veterans Administration Domiciliary, and hundreds more were transported into Medford and utilized as residential housing. The makeshift drag strip was Camp White’s compulsory solution to antsy servicemen itching for some post-war adrenaline. It worked well from its inception in 1955 until the local timber industry set up shop there in 1961, and Camp White became White City.

Although passenger cars constituted the bulk of entries at Avenue G, several purpose-built racers ran there regularly. Noel Black’s A/Dragster (left lane) and Bub Hewitt and Jack Gault’s Miss-Fit Street Roadster demonstrate, at speed. (Photo 87786, Courtesy Southern Oregon Historical Society)

The street-turned-strip featured then-current timing equipment in an actual timing tower, built on an old Army barracks foundation, and manned with Southern Oregon Timing Association (SOTA) volunteers from area clubs. Monty Wray recalls driving his ’52 Olds custom to Azusa, California, to pick up the Meyers clocks from the manufacturer, which turned out to be a small house in a humble residential neighborhood. Avenue G never received grandstands or guardrails. Gerald Fanger’s green flag started every race until someone mysteriously produced a green/red stoplight toward the end of Avenue G’s run. (Photo 87784, Courtesy Southern Oregon Historical Society)

Avenue G itself stayed put, but the previously remote site was now referred to as White City Industrial Park, and log trucks have ruled Avenue G ever since. But for six golden years, this scruffy patch of sagebrush, scorpions, and rattlesnakes on the Agate Desert floor was manna to a tri-city valley swarming with speed addicts.

Like their second cousins, the dynamometers, drag strips are tools used by hot rodders. The state of one’s tools says plenty about the circumstances they are used in. Bone dry Avenue G lies flat on the floor of the Rogue Valley, surrounded by rolling hills of scrub oak, then mountains of rich forestland, all deep green with nourishment from abundant Oregon rainfall.

Conversely, the Avenue G area seems to have been watered regularly with Agent Orange. Up in the provisional wooden timing tower, the scent of fresh-cut pine and fir from area sawmills juxtaposed exhaust fumes on a good day. Other days were near blackouts, with wigwam burners, smudge pots, and nearby forest fires providing a sullen ambiance. Such is the life of a tool, but Avenue G served its users well, akin to that favorite crusty wrench that your shop teacher gave you on graduation day.

The banger-powered dragster of Jerry Lausmann pretty much owned its class. After test firing it at the shop, Lausmann hopped in and hightailed it more than 2 miles to Avenue G and made this successful pass. (Photo Courtesy Monty Wray Collection)

SOTA promoted its Northwest Gas Championships at the Medford Kiwanis’ Town and Country show. As usual, Swiftan Noel Black’s A/Dragster is in the middle of the action. The blown flathead on display was a nice bonus for showgoers. That’s Road Knight Monty Wray’s custom Olds lurking at right, with metal work by Barris, paint by Watson, and striping by Roth. (Photo 87785, Courtesy Southern Oregon Historical Society)

SOTA never lacked for club rivalries. The Road Knights thrash to prepare Jack Hillberry’s T pickup for battle at Avenue G. Left to right are Les Zimmery, Dee Hillberry, Keith Wilson, Leroy Moore (in back), Monty Wray, and Jack Hillberry. (Photo Courtesy Scotty Gosson Collection)

The nonprofit Southern Oregon Timing Association (SOTA) was solely created by and composed of seven local car clubs: Swiftans, Wheelers, Road Knights, Centurians, Pacemakers, Road Aces, and Strip Saints. In the spring of 1955, the organization waved the green flag on Avenue G’s freshman season. SOTA had gone $7,000 into debt (in 1955 dollars) getting to this point and its members were understandably apprehensive. Imagine their relief when an estimated 3,000 fans gathered on the dusty plain to witness 83 entries competing in 18 classes, presided over by founding SOTA president (and fellow racer) Monty Wray.

Trophies were awarded to Top Eliminator, Fastest Time, and the class winners. The Simonson & Walker Trophy Shop must have been encouraged with the request for 21 trophies, which instantly became a standing weekly order. SOTA initially intended to host strictly local events on Avenue G, but visiting racers dropped in from everywhere to compete in classes from Stock to AA/FD.

Traversing a Northwest circuit that ran roughly from Redding, California, to Mission, British Columbia, Canada, many touring racers couldn’t resist the opportunity to test and hopefully cash in at Avenue G. The SOTA crew welcomed one and all with equal grace and gratitude, but many a California hot shoe anticipating easy prey suffered humiliation at the hands of Oregon racers. Boasting a fervent automotive culture reaching back to the turn of the century, the Oregonians’ high-performance acumen was formidable. Consequently, a rivalry developed between the Camp White and Redding strips that rode its momentum well into the new millennium. Some good-natured smack talk continues today between the adversaries, but things are decidedly chummier than in the 1950s.

Positive word-of-mouth regarding Avenue G ultimately resulted in SOTA’s most ambitious event, the Northwest Gas Championships. Five thousand spectators crowded the track to witness the spectacle of local and visiting racers swatting it out for Northwest Territory bragging rights. Suddenly, the little strip out in the scrub brush was big-time, complete with newspaper and magazine photographers (and Avenue G track photographer Dick Simonson) jockeying for position to catch name racers in action on Avenue G. The Northwest Gas Championships were promptly declared annual events.

Like many 1950s-era racetracks wanting to appease vexed community leaders while protecting and promoting their own agenda, Avenue G hosted several events each year that raised funds for local charities, such as the United Medford Crusade and the Ashland-Talent Youth Fund. The local Women’s Auxiliary and the Lions Club sponsored and worked these events, in the name of community service. One of SOTA’s unique fund-raising ploys was engraving car owners’ names on their hubcaps to more easily identify them in the event of theft. But the club’s most obvious and valuable contribution to the community was a marked reduction in reckless driving in general, and street racing in particular.

Wheeler Bud McCall’s tire shop sponsored Johnny Gates’ steel 1915 T from nearby Grants Pass during the Avenue G era. Gates makes tracks in the 4-71 blown Caddy-powered A/Roadster, as wigwam burners and other lumber mill paraphernalia encroach upon the strip, marking this shot as likely from 1959 to 1961. Gates’ T was put on the street at that point, and is still rolling today, in California. (Photo Courtesy Monty Wray Collection)

Avenue G racers were certainly no angels, but expressed humble gratitude for a legal place to be hellions. All parties agreed that the drag strip was a boon to the citizenry. So it came to be that more than one local racer made connections with area politicians that eventually drew them into more mainstream public service. That was only one of countless amusing developments during a very sweet six years on Avenue G.

The great crescendo of Avenue G’s operatic western saga happened in 1961. Represented by the sixth Northwest Gas Championships, which was again attended by 5,000 fans cheering on 17 dragsters (including the return of California’s Cortopassi brothers, and even the Florida Swamp Rat himself, Don Garlits), this was definitely SOTA’s most dramatic showdown. Ambitious plans were underway for the 1962 season, when the word came down: SOTA’s day under the smoky sun was officially done. Avenue G was destined to be a fulltime public street, and the Swiftans, Wheelers,Road Knights, Centurians, Pacemakers, Road Aces, and Strip Saints could only drive it their separate ways to whatever adventures awaited them.

Notes on those odysseys, and more, were compared 30 years later, when multiple West Coast strip matriarch Pat Ma Green organized the SOTA Reunion in White City on September 1, 1991. Alas, from that day on, the daredevils of the Agate Desert began slipping into obscurity and fading from memory like so much historically significant clutch dust. In a sense, that’s exactly what they were.

Ever the innovators, SOTA members constructed this traveling display in 1955, and put many laps on it through 1961. Two sewing machine motors (under display) drove the scale draggers down the scaled Avenue G, employing slightly different-size pulleys to supply a chase scenario to every match-up. The crowds ate it up and stuck around to hear about full-scale drag racing. Most onlookers could be found trackside at Avenue G on the following Sunday. (Photo Courtesy Monty Wray Collection)

You know these guys are serious because they’re wearing their whites. The unknown Hemified B/Altered ’34 five-window gets a last-minute plug check and shock adjustment before being pushed out onto Avenue G. Subtle quarter-panel lettering reads, Sponsored by Me. (Dick Simonson Photo, Courtesy Scotty Gosson Collection)

The famed Glass Slipper found Avenue G’s concrete surface to have adequate bite at the 1959 Northwest Gas Championships. Brothers Ed and Ray Cortopassi built the revolutionary multitasker in 1954, went 181 mph with it at Bonneville in 1955 (with flathead power), and seamlessly adapted to drag racing in 1956 with a 265-ci overhead Chevy. America’s first streamlined drag racer became America’s Most Beautiful Competition Car in 1957, thanks in part to new partner Doug Butler, who brought his blown 301-ci small-block Chevy to the previously naturally aspirated program. Of Avenue G, Butler recalls, We met some great people there. That’s why we kept coming back. (Photo Courtesy Ronnie Mankins Collection)

Portland-area upholsterer Chuck Blanchard built several winning flatheads and inliners before bringing this overhead dragster to Avenue G in 1958. The 265-ci Chevy drank 100-percent nitro from the six Strombergs, resulting in a 165-mph pass. This was one of the few Northwest dragsters to beat the renowned Glass Slipper, and Blanchard did it on Avenue G. Blanchard takes on local favorite Noel Black (near lane) in this pairing. (Photo Courtesy Jim Lindsay Collection)

Wheeler Brian Watson (left) and Road Knight Monty Wray (right) returned to Avenue G in the winter of 2014 for a look around. The Army barracks and lumber mills are mostly gone now, but the concrete (at left) bears witness to the past. The road surface is now all asphalt, including the whooptie that brought racers’ stomachs to their throats, just before the finish line. It once caused Wray’s roadster to jump the right-side ditch and land out in the field. Watson didn’t mind, as long as Wray missed Watson’s six-volt battery-powered timing cells.

Bob Duedall