A Raucous Ritual: Friday Night Speedway

The first time I saw a speedway motorcycle race at the Orange County Fairgrounds, I was 19. I went with a group of buddies and we carried cases--literally cases--of beer in our arms as we walked through the entrance gate. We figured a case of beer sitting next to you in the stands was a good way to meet girls and that was the real reason we went to speedway. To meet girls and find a hot party ... where you could meet more girls. For the next few summers, it became a Friday night ritual.

That was 21 years ago. Last week, I ventured back to speedway with my 10-year-old daughter, Jaime, in tow. I discovered that only the generations--and the rules about bringing in beer--had changed. I realized that one day in the not-too-distant future Jaime might be going to speedway on Friday nights, and in this change-or-die society, that seems a remarkable sort of tradition.

Surely, teen-agers will always find a spot to meet on Friday nights, but drive-in restaurants are all but extinct and the drive-in movie isn’t far behind. So why should a motorcycle race--and one that some motorcycle enthusiasts might scoff at--endure? There are some simple and some not-so-obvious answers. But every Friday night from April to September, this speedway show goes on. And they keep coming back for the mud, the blood and the beer.

One thing is certain, the smells haven’t changed in 20 years. The first and possibly most lingering memories of Friday night at the fairgrounds are olfactory.

The acrid smell of exploding methanol fuel. The stale odor of spilled beer. Even the pungent aroma of burning marijuana now and again.

And the sounds, of which there are essentially only three, haven’t changed, either. First, there’s the booming of the bikes. You know, unmuffled combustible engines. Not far behind are the bellows of track announcer Larry Huffman. (“ Can you hear me in Turn One? “) Hell, Larry, they can hear you in Irvine. And there’s the occasional chant of “More beer!” orchestrated by “Mean Gene the Dancing Machine.” Gene, whose real name isn’t even Gene, is a longtime fan who drinks large quantities of beer, dances on the guard rail between races and announces, “If you’re going to drink like me, get a designated driver.”

If the barrage on your other senses hasn’t already overloaded your brain, speedway is also a sight to behold.

There are lots and lots of young women and girls, many of whom look as if they should be on ESPN in a leotard doing jumping jacks--and more than a few deeply tanned young men who obviously have spent some time in a weight room.

A great many fashion trends have come and gone while these guys on skinny little motorcycles have spun thousands upon thousands of laps, but one thing remains: Most females dress up for this event; most males just get dressed. The girls look as if they’re auditioning for the cover of Vogue. The guys look as if they’re going out to mow the lawn.

There’s also a burgeoning number of families in attendance these days. Promoter Harry Oxley has been proclaiming his wish to produce a “family atmosphere” for two decades, and it seems he has said it so many times, it has become reality.

All the kids in the stands are testimony to the sport’s staying power. A lot of people who grew up with speedway at the fairgrounds are now bringing their kids. And, after all, who likes flying mud more than kids? Maybe the producer of the immensely popular kids’ television show, “Super Sloppy Double Dare” was a speedway fan.

People-watching may rate No. 1 on the list of visual attractions for many in attendance, but the races are often downright exciting, too. Since the retirement of the evil Bast Brothers (their sin was that they lived in Van Nuys), there seems to be less of the good guy/bad guy syndrome these days. Sorry, this isn’t pro wrestling. But everyone has a favorite and it’s almost as much fun to root for someone as it is to root against someone.

You don’t need any expertise, or even much patience, to enjoy speedway racing. Each race lasts about 90 seconds, and the competitors spend most of the time skidding sideways, hanging precariously off the sides of their bikes to maintain the delicate balance between slide and collide.

Anything can happen. Maybe even a spectacular crash, (we all hope no one is injured, of course), and then a restart for double the fun.

Speedway racing had flourished in the U.S. before it died with gas rationing and the second World War. Oxley, with some moral and financial support from Jack Milne, the 1937 world speedway champion, revved up a few old speedway bikes he found in Milne’s Pasadena motorcycle shop and revived the sport.

“There were a lot of guys around who remembered speedway racing,” Oxley recalled. “And there were a lot of old bikes laying around. We just started racing with a rag-tag bunch of junk.”

In 1968, with Oxley’s drive and $1,500 of Milne’s dough, International Speedway, Inc. was born and racing began on the 190-yard decomposed granite track at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. The company has turned a profit every year since.

Oxley has his own plane, a house in Mexico and a lot of plans for his retirement, if only he could find the right person or company that he was sure would take care of the love of his life. And the youth of southern Orange County have a Friday night hangout, replete with thrills, spills and plenty of action . . . on the track and in the stands.

THE MAIN MAN

“We didn’t have a streaker, we had seven. The Costa Mesa Police Department was doing our security at the time and they caught them and had this naked streaker handcuffed to our guardrail that night. The next day, a headline said, ‘Streakers Race Speedway.’ Front page headline. I damn near died. We sold out 11 of the first 13 weeks.”

--Promoter Harry Oxley, on opening night in 1974

If Harry Oxley had been able to predict the results of that little jaunt, he would have hired someone to run naked around the fairgrounds oval years sooner. Or he would have done the honors himself if he had to.

You see, speedway in America is Harry Oxley. He brought it back from a 30-year coma as surely as if he’d performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a speedway bike. The man put in a full shift in Milne’s motorcycle shop during the day and then drove 50 miles to play maintenance man for a 190-yard dirt track in Costa Mesa half the night. And he dragged along his wife, Marilynn, who also was rearing four young children at the time, so she could do the books.

Oxley has spent much of the past two decades redefining the realm of the motorcycle mogul. Or maybe motorcycle monarch would be a more appropriate term. Oxley has run speedway with an iron hand. He personally broke a riders’ strike in 1977. There is no riders’ union and never will be if Oxley has his way. And, so far, he has.

Hawaiian shirt, tennis shoes and Styrofoam coffee cup in hand, he’s a whirlwind of motion on Friday nights. If there’s a controversy, he makes an on-the-spot ruling and it’s off to the races again.

It might not be democratic, but it’s certainly efficient. And Oxley sees himself as an enlightened despot.

“I spend the whole night torturing the riders, yelling and screaming at them to get out there on time and do their job,” Oxley said. “The veterans understand where I’m coming from but the new guys get pretty intimidated sometimes.”

But those riders, and all those people in the stands, are the reasons Oxley keeps going. When he started this business venture, he never figured it would evolve into more than a “club deal,” with maybe 750 people coming to watch.

These days, attendance averages about 3,500 at the 8,300-capacity stadium, and Oxley knows it might prove difficult for him to let go.

“You build a business from scratch and work it for 22 years, it’s hard to walk away,” he said. “Oh, I’ve had plenty of offers to buy it, but I never thought it would be run right. Fifty-some kids make most of their living off racing here.

“I want someone who cares about perpetuating the sport, with a genuine interest in speedway, not just making money. The only real bona fide offer I ever considered was from (racing promoter) Mickey Thompson. We met and talked on a Monday, and on Wednesday he was killed.”

Thompson, a millionaire racing promoter, was murdered in 1988.

As for the financial success of speedway, Oxley doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, but he knows tough times on the economic front usually mean bigger gates. Attendance has been down for the past couple of years, but it has been picking up steadily this season.

“It’s really hard to say why the crowds fluctuate from year to year,” he said. “I mean, in 1980 and ‘81, we had 14 of our best, most popular riders go to England to race and we had some of our best crowds ever.

“I do know that we do best during hard times--runaway inflation or when unemployment is rampant. The gas-rationing year was our best ever.”

From a financial standpoint, Harry Oxley doesn’t need speedway. He didn’t start it for money, though, and it’s not the money that keeps him hanging on.

“Just about the time you really get disgusted and are ready to say the hell with it, some guy comes wobbling out of the stands and says, ‘Harry, I haven’t missed a race for 17 years, except once when I was real sick, and I just don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t for Friday night at the races.’ ”

THE MOTOR MOUTH

‘ ‘It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s SUPERMOUTH!”

--from Larry Huffman’s business card

Larry Huffman, the mouth that roared, spends his Friday nights conducting the world’s largest, and most chaotic, orchestra. He may be better known for his Jeep Eagle advertisements, but anyone who has been to a speedway race in Costa Mesa knows him as the tuxedo-clad screaming maniac who jumps up and down on a table in front of the starting line, producing Who-like decibels over the public address system that easily can be heard above the roar of the motorcycles.

Every rider has a nickname and every nickname--even if it’s short on syllables--becomes a litany of sorts when exiting Huffman’s mouth.

“Wearing No. 2, Alan ‘CRAAAAAAAAY-ZZEEEEEEEEE’ Christian.”

He adds a little bit of humor too, although his critics might point out that it’s very little.

He recently introduced the competitors in a sidecar exhibition thusly: “They make you take a mental proficiency test and if you fail, they let you ride on these things.”

Huffman’s raucous rambling just adds to the party atmosphere. And that, of course, is the whole point.

“I don’t think the atmosphere has changed much here in 20 years,” Huffman said. “The races are more exciting now because Brad (Oxley, Harry’s son and one of the top-ranked riders in the U.S.) prepares the track and it’s always different. The riders don’t know what to expect from week to week. A couple of weeks ago, we had four different leaders in a four-lap race.”

Huffman was not at the mike from 1980 to 1984 and missed another year in 1986 because of contract disputes with Oxley. In 1986, when attendance began to sag, Oxley told Huffman he couldn’t afford him anymore. The gate was worse in 1987.

“Harry pays me well for what I do,” Huffman said. “We sat down and figured out what it would take, what kind of crowds I should draw to make it worth his while, and now I’m back.”

Huffman and Oxley have had their falling outs, but Huffman is the first to admit it’s Harry’s show.

“Speedway survives here for a number of reasons,” he said. “Harry’s fought tremendously hard to keep the parking free. He spends a lot of money on maintenance, the restrooms are always clean, and security. If there is a brawl, which doesn’t happen often, it lasts only a minute.”

This is not a hard-core motorcycle crowd. There are no more than a handful of motorcycles parked out front on any given night and they are lost amid a sea dotted with white Volkswagen convertibles and even a few BMWs.

These folks don’t come to pick fights. They come to pick up, or get picked up. They come to par-tay .

THE MADMEN

“I think everybody would almost do it for free. It’s hard to explain. You’re almost flying. It gives you the feeling of floating along. It’s a high, really. I think that’s one reason the fans enjoy it so much. They can sense how much fun it is.”

--Speedway racer Billy Gray in 1975

Billy Gray is 51 now and still racing speedway bikes. He’s the same Billy Gray who played Bud Anderson on the television series “Father Knows Best.”

His airy, very-mid-’70s description of sliding sideways at 50 miles per hour with three other guys who have just as precarious control of their machines as you do, still captures the essence of the speedway experience.

“These guys are insane ,” one first-time spectator says.

Actually, speedway is relatively safe as motor sports go. The bikes weigh only 180 pounds and speeds seldom exceed 50, so you almost always walk away from a collision.

Speedway racing has been compared to everything from rodeo to rollerball, but really, it’s unique.

“I may be a little biased, but I think it’s a really exciting sport,” said Bruce Penhall, probably the all-time fairgrounds crowd favorite who retired in 1982 after winning the world speedway title. “At Orange County, you compete in a small stadium on a small track and let’s face it, these aren’t motorcycle people, these are beach people. But they come because it’s fast, exciting and there’s no time to get bored. You get to see (about 22) races a night, all for the price of a movie.

“There’s a lot of things to do in Orange County on a Friday night, but they keep coming back and you have to give the new breed of riders credit. They take the time to promote the sport. They take the time to give autographs to the kids who look up to them.”

Those youngsters are the ones who will someday bring a few friends to speedway. And, in that way, the chain will remain unbroken.

Bobby Schwartz is a member of speedway’s old breed. He started racing at 17 and has been slip-sliding around dirt tracks all over the world for 16 years since.

“The faces have changed, both in the crowd and on the track, but the racing isn’t really much different,” he said. “It’s not quite as aggro (aggressive) in the pits these days.

“I switched from motocross racing to speedway because I liked the fact that you were identifiable as a rider. And I think that’s a reason the crowds like it so much. The action is quick and exciting, you can easily identify your favorite riders and you don’t have to like motorcycles to enjoy it.”

Schwartz still relies on speedway as his main source of income. And so does Gray. Schwartz is getting into selling real estate on the side. Gray supplements his income by selling strawberries on the side of a road in Topanga Canyon.

THE MYSTIQUE

“I’d say about 60% of the guys are looking for women and about 40% are here to watch the races and look for women. I suppose it’s about the same for the girls.”

--Security guard Willard Butler’s assessment of the speedway crowd in 1978

Unofficial, to be sure, but Butler’s demographic breakdown of a typical gathering at the races seems to hold true 11 years later.

Mark Shuck, 30, of Huntington Beach, has been spending most of his summer Friday nights at speedway since he was 15.

“I think the family area (the covered grandstand behind the start/finish line) has gotten a lot bigger over the years,” he said. “But this section (behind the first turn) hasn’t changed much at all.

“I keep coming because I like the races and, at seven bucks, it’s pretty cheap entertainment.”

Shuck’s fiance, Chris Vaughn, is in her second season as a speedway regular, but she’s explaining the scene to a visiting couple from New York with the savvy of a veteran.

“Mark picks the winners, I pick the crashers,” she said. “It’s really easy to pick the crashers. You just pick the ones who spend more money on their leathers than their bikes.”

A couple of minutes later, a rider in Day-Glo orange and neon yellow leathers flips over and slams into the wall.

“See what I mean?” she says, smiling proudly.

But Vaughn points out that part of the attraction is the fact that there’s more to watch than the races.

“Actually, a lot of the fun is making fun of all the other people . . . like those guys over there,” she whispers, pointing to a group of black-leather-clad youths who appear to have had their hair cut with a weed-whacker. “There’s some real weirdos out here and, well, somebody has to be perfect so it might as well be me.”

Katherine White of Costa Mesa has an infant in her lap and a string of four other children, ranging in ages from 2 to 10, by her side.

“My husband’s out of town, but we came tonight anyway,” she said. “It’s sort of a routine and the kids look forward to it. The young ones like the pizza and soda, but the older ones are more into the races.

“It’s a nice family evening out and all the teen-agers aren’t a problem. They’re all pretty polite and you only occasionally see someone who’s so drunk they’re out of control.”

So at least it’s not as rowdy as, say, a pro football crowd.

Sure, they come for a variety of reasons--the races, to socialize, to see and be seen--but still they come. And while the size of the crowds ebbs and flows, Harry Oxley’s magical motorcycle show endures.