Where Fumes Meet the Surf? : Grand Prix Racing Hits Del Mar Today

The much-delayed, much-disputed Camel Grand Prix of Southern California roars into Del Mar today, amid a cloud of litigation, neighborhood nervousness and high hopes on the part of car-racing enthusiasts.

After four lawsuits, numerous public hearings and 46 “mitigation measures” contained in a Coastal Commission permit, race cars are set to spin around the grounds at the Del Mar Race Track for the first time since 1964.

Promoters are anticipating a crowd upwards of 40,000 on the busiest day of the two-weekend event, half the size of a good day at the Del Mar Fair.

“We’ve had 2 1/2 years of trials and tribulations over this,” Del Mar Fair Board President Raymond Saatjian said with a sigh. “But I’m convinced that it will prove to have been worth the effort, and to have far less impact on the community than people have been led to believe.”

The race track’s neighbors are not so sure.

Residents in Solana Beach and Del Mar are girding for the worst. Some are leaving their homes, others say they dare not leave for fear of being burgled by shiftless race fans.

The Sheriff’s Department sent deputies this week to calm homeowners’ nerves and provide anti-burglary advice. Solana Beach slapped a two-hour limit on parking for next weekend, backed up by a $25 fine.

Solana Beach and Del Mar have hired sound consultants to monitor race noise from vantage points in the surrounding streets and hills--gathering evidence that could be used either in lawsuits or to persuade the Coastal Commission not to issue a permit for the race next year. The Fair Board will have its own sound consultants on duty.

Del Mar has set up a hot line for residents to document complaints. A 12-person citizens’ committee will roam the fairgrounds and environs checking on noise, traffic, litter, rowdiness, and grease and gas runoff into San Dieguito Lagoon.

Hanging heavy in the air like the smell of gasoline is the specter of individual homeowner lawsuits against the race management or Fair Board because of noise. One study says the noise will be sufficient to disrupt conversations a mile away.

Promoters insist that they have done everything possible to mollify residents, including a system where cars exceeding noise levels will be waved off the track. Nearby residents have been offered free train tickets and passes to the San Diego Zoo for race days.

Only 200 residents took the offer, while 1,400 accepted a corresponding offer of free entry into the races, which promoters say indicates that opposition to the Grand Prix is not widespread.

But Solana Beach resident H.K. Friedland says the out-of-town offer was more of an insult than a show of concern. A free train ride and a free pass hardly compensate for being routed from your home, he said.

“The offer was so ridiculous, it was intended to keep people from accepting it,” Friedland said. He added that his wife will leave town for the weekend but he will stay behind to protect their home from burglary--a fear that promoters say is groundless.

“We’ve tried to tell people that this is not a destruction derby,” said attorney Steven Kane, who represents the promoter, Del Mar Race Management. “There are not going to be motorcycle gangs marauding through Del Mar during the race. Race fans are mostly family people with kids who just happen to love racing.”

Permission for car racing was a lot simpler in the old days when San Diego County had a varied and flourishing race circuit, according to a short history of local racing compiled by Johnny McDonald, a former sportswriter for the San Diego Union.

1916 Race in Point Loma

The likes of Barney Oldfield, Eddie Rickenbacker and other barnstorming daredevils thundered through the streets of Point Loma in 1916 in a race that was part of the Pan Pacific Exposition at Balboa Park. Red Burman attempted a world land-speed record at Pacific Beach.

Tracks sprung up at Montgomery Field, Hourglass Field in Miramar, the parking lot of the old San Diego Stadium, and Silvergate Raceway near what is now Sea World. Midget-car races at Balboa Stadium brought future Indianapolis 500 stars Rodger Ward, Parnelli Jones, Billy Vukovich and Johnnie Parsons.

Dan Gurney, Phil Hill and other international stars drove at the 2.7-mile course at Torrey Pines, later supplanted by the Municipal Golf Course. About 40,000 fans watched the last weekend of racing in 1956. The treacherous Ocean Corner soon became a par four. The Del Mar Fairgrounds had several stretches of racing--using both the race track and parking lot. Rex Mays, often a pole-sitter at Indianapolis, was killed at Del Mar in 1949, a victim of his own refusal to wear a seat belt.

Finally, in 1964 car racing died off in Del Mar, done in by insurance problems, declining attendance and, yes, noise complaints. The glory years of Del Mar will be remembered in the Historic Del Mar Reunion Race on Sunday for cars and drivers from 1959 to 1964.

Public Parking Restricted

The 1.6-mile track and the grandstands have gobbled up the fairgrounds’ paved parking lot, so public parking will be restricted to the dirt lot east of Jimmy Durante Boulevard. Parking is $3 a day and daily tickets range from $5 to $15. Children under 12 are free.

This weekend is the Vintage Grand Prix and Jim Russell Series Races--the mom-and-pop part of the racing scene, where backyard mechanics with cars lovingly assembled can race for fun and profit. Cars date from World War I to the early 1970s, many of them modified, chopped-down Indy cars.

Next weekend, Oct. 23, 24 and 25, is the more serious stuff, the final stop on the 1987 International Motor Sports Assn. Camel GT Sports Car Championship Series. Speeds will exceed 200 m.p.h., there will be 10 turns, and racing teams from Porsche, Corvette, Jaguar and Pontiac, among others, will be entered.

The Grand Prix slogan is: “A New Breed of Horsepower Comes to Del Mar.”

The new breed brought immediate protest from Del Mar and Solana Beach when the idea was first floated in late 1985. A homeowners’ group sued on environmental grounds and lost. The racing was delayed a year because of legal challenges.

Del Mar withdrew its lawsuit only after the Fair Board played its trump card: discussion of possible de-annexation from the city, which would cost the tiny city nearly $1 million a year.

Political maverick Harvey Furgatch sued and lost, then put up billboards blasting the Grand Prix. A recorded message told people to put economic pressure on R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Camel’s corporate parent, to withdraw as the sponsor.

Today’s ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled to be picketed by members of the Del Mar Health Initiative and Citizens for Clear Air, bearing signs saying “Camel Go Home” and “Del Mar Says No to Drugs.”

Health Initiative leader Richard Roe, a former Del Mar councilman, finds the Grand Prix doubly vexing: loud and polluting, and sponsored by a cigarette maker at a time when Del Mar is debating a restriction on smoking in all public places, indoors and out.

Saatjian, the nurseryman and restaurant owner named to the Fair Board in 1983 by his wife’s cousin, Gov. George Deukmejian, says the Grand Prix “has been so badly politicized that the truth is getting lost.”

“I hope the days of litigating are over,” he said. “But there seem to be people whose political stock is tied up with opposing us so that they will oppose the race under any circumstances.”

Del Mar Councilman Scott Barnett, a Grand Prix moderate who did not favor the city’s lawsuit, jokingly says that some citizens view the race with the same enthusiasm as nuclear testing.

“This has been a traumatic two years for both Del Mar and the Fair Board,” he said. “We both spent time and money on lawsuits and lost a good deal of public image. Two public agencies fighting is not a good kind of business. Now we’re going to see what it was all about.”