Southern California Racers Need Your Help To Revive Area Strips

If you’ve been keeping up with the news here on DRAGZINE and through other online and print drag racing new sources, no doubt that you’re aware of the situation ongoing in the Southern California region, where no one, but two of the area drag strips recently shuttered their gates. The first of those was the Irwindale Speedway, which suddenly closed upon news of the leasing parties’ bankruptcy. Less than two weeks later, the Auto Club Dragway at Fontana was forced to close – temporarily we hope – while further environmental impact studies could be carried out.

Something that readers in other areas of the nation may understand is that the loss of two tracks in SoCal represents essentially two-thirds of the tracks in the entire region. A region once littered with quarter mile strips of asphalt is left now with only the 1/8-mile Barona Dragstrip.

The good news is that from the comfort of your own desk chair, you can help the cause.

A group of local racers in Southern California led by Dana Sniff of Irvine have begun a petition to the State of California and the county of San Bernardino voicing the need for legal, closed course drag racing facilities to provide a safe and organized location to keep racers off the streets, while providing legitimate racers a venue to continue pursuing their hobby.

Why This Is Important

It will keep the street racing down to a bare minimum and is truly in the best interest of Public Safety. An organized, safe venue to race our cars is truly a “positive” for our communities. It also teaches young people that we do care enough about their futures by providing a safe alternative, therefore giving them the “option” to do the right thing.

Without a safe and organized facility to race their cars, they are going to have no positive choice so the end result will surely be illegal street racing. Just look at the numbers from the San Diego area pertaining to illegal street racing deaths before they opened up the facility at Qualcomm Stadium (which is currently looking for private funding to stay alive). Drag racing legally is a great thing! There are no negatives. It brings all types of people and families together in a friendly and fun environment and without a legal and safe environment to operate our cars, the alternative is all negatives. And let’s not forget the fact that in this tough economy, race tracks EMPLOY people and those people pay taxes as well as the race tracks generate revenues. It’s a win win! So PLEASE give us our race tracks!

The petition has already reached over 5,700 signatures toward a goal of 7,500, and you can help your racing brothers and sisters in this region by voicing your support as well. Simply visit change.org and sign the petition, and if so inclined, leave your thoughts for organizers to share with their political officials.

About the author

Andrew Wolf

Andrew has been involved in motorsports from a very young age. Over the years, he has photographed several major auto racing events, sports, news journalism, portraiture, and everything in between. After working with the Power Automedia staff for some time on a freelance basis, Andrew joined the team in 2010.
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