For One Hour, It’s Gas Heaven

Saddam Hussein may be offering free oil, but one service station here came pretty close to that Friday night when the price of gasoline dropped to 27.9 cents per gallon for an hour.

Cheap fuel spilled into anxious motorists’ gas tanks from 8 p.m to 9 p.m. at the Huntington Harbor Exxon station on Pacific Coast Highway near Warner Avenue after the station “won” KROQ-FM’s low-price gas-bidding contest.

Station manager Chris Jennings kept his fingers crossed that all would stay calm during the sale that caused about 150 motorists to line up along Warner Avenue into the station and jam the adjacent parking lot. He said about 1,000 gallons were sold in that one hour.

First at the pump was Steve Murga, 40, a Huntington Beach home builder who showed up at 4 p.m. and waited four hours to fill one of his trucks with 17 gallons of cheap gas.

“Everybody’s nice here. I’ll be back,” Murga said.