Cycle Track Has an Olympic Flavor : Materials From Games Used to Build South Bay Speedway

Officials of South Bay Speedway in Gardena are promoting their weekly speedway motorcycle races as “Thursday Night Live,” with a racing facility that has an Olympic past.

The $500,000-track adjacent to Ascot Park was built virtually from the ground up with materials that promoter Chris Agajanian bought at the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee’s public auction.

The 220-yard track has everything from the familiar star-in-motion logos on the canvas skirting that surrounds the bleachers, to Olympic flag poles, tents, columns, flags, turnstiles and the scaffold that stands at the main entrance.

Agajanian, youngest son of the late racing entrepreneur, J.C. Agajanian, even bought 5,000 seats from the McDonald Swim Stadium at USC.

Agajanian, 35, attended Olympic events such as track and field, boxing, basketball, archery and synchronized swimming. He said he noticed something common at each venue site.

“Every facility was color-coordinated and really well-designed,” he said. “I looked at the people attending the events, and there was a glow on their faces. They were excited, and I think the flags and the colors at each venue got the people excited before they ever walked into an arena or a stadium.”

But the thought of recapturing the Olympic feeling didn’t occur to Agajanian until his older brother, Jay, walked into his office one day wearing a blue Olympic blazer.

“I asked him where he got that, and he told me about the auction and everything the LAOOC was selling,” Agajanian said. “The thought hit me that I might be able to buy some things that I could use here for my race track.”

For the next six days, Agajanian spent seven hours a day at the auction, gobbling up anything he thought might look good at his track.

“All you needed was a truck and a lot of cash,” he said. “It was all a matter of timing. At one time, I had talked with seven different architects with seven different plans on how to build the race track here.

“The LAOOC had designed some beautiful facilities for the Olympic events, and I decided that was what I wanted. I wanted to bring back that feeling of the Olympics and combine it with the excitement of speedway racing.”

Agajanian also contacted a Santa Monica paint company that had been used by the LAOOC, and color-coordinated his existing track materials. The paint was $40 a gallon.

“I did get some good buys,” he said. “The two flag poles in the infield of our track were originally $980 apiece. I got them for less than $100 each. I also think that buying all the Olympic items expedited the opening of the track.

“It’s very difficult to build a race track in Los Angeles County or anywhere else in Southern California at the present time. We’ve had 14 race tracks close in the past 10 years here. The red-tape process involved in opening South Bay Speedway was difficult.

“But items such as those fabric sheets with the Olympic star logos had already been fire-inspected and were quickly OKd here.”

The track is a part of an 18-acre expansion for Agajanian Enterprises. Also included are a bicycle motocross track and a Slic Trak, an amusement racing track that Agajanian thinks is potentially the company’s biggest money-maker.

The track has a polished concrete surface with a liquid silicon base that allows motorized go-karts to slide around the corners. Paul Newman rented the track and staged his birthday party there.

“We’re building three Slic Traks in Japan this year and are talking to some people about franchising them in this country,” Agajanian said. “We’ve developed something that’s more fun than Malibu Grand Prix because we can put 10-15 drivers on the track at one time instead of a kid going one-on-one with a clock. A kid can race against his friends.”

Racing has been the name of the game at Ascot Park since J.C. Agajanian leased the track in 1976. The established Ascot half-mile track continues to promote weekly motocross, midget and sprint car racing. The track has also played host to about 80 national motorcycle events, and the American Motorcycle Assn.’s Spring Classic is scheduled there tonight.

About 1,500 professional and amateur bicycle motocross riders from across the nation will compete there May 19 in the Pacific Coast Open for $10,000 in cash and prizes.

The racing, no matter what form it takes, never stops. That’s the way J.C. Agajanian promoted, and it’s the formula his sons, Chris and Cary, are following. J.C. died of pneumonia a year ago at 70.

“Dad didn’t know we were building South Bay Speedway,” Chris Agajanian said. “When Cary and I decided to do it, we weren’t sure if he would approve of spending $500,000 for a speedway track. But we felt it was a viable sport that was proven in Costa Mesa and San Bernardino, and that we were coming in at a good time.”