‘L.A.’s Place to Race’ : Saugus Speedway, a Former Rodeo Ring, Outlasts All Other West-Coast Auto Tracks

It’s as quintessentially American as red Chevy pickups, white souvenir T-shirts and blue-collar grit.

It’s the roar of a crowd and souped-up stock car engines. It’s the aroma of hot pretzels, the smell of burning rubber. It’s a star-spangled cast of performers with names such as “Rock” and “Rip” and “Rusty,” cheered on by mostly working-class families toting blankets, baby strollers and beer coolers.

This is Saturday night at the Saugus Speedway, dubbed “L.A.’s Place to Race.” It began in the 1920s as a rodeo arena, next door to the scene of a 1929 train robbery by a cattle rustler named “Buffalo Tom” Vernon, before the property was sold to cowboy actor Hoot Gibson and later to former Los Angeles City Councilman and Assemblyman William G. (Bill) Bonelli, who in 1939 converted the site to dirt-track auto racing.

Today, 53 years later, the speedway--still owned by the Bonelli family--remains a citadel of Southern California’s car culture. It’s also an irrepressible symbol of unchange in the fast-changing Santa Clarita Valley.

Here, Chevy Luminas, Ford T-Birds and Pontiac Firebirds become 100-m.p.h. blurs, their battered fenders and door panels painted every color from electric blue to hot pink, garishly emblazoned with commercial plugs for sponsors such as “Josh Herman Bail Bonds,” “Primo Pizza,” “Lil’ John Auto Parts” and “Ron’s Rear Ends.”

Henry Ford, Louis Chevrolet and all those automotive pioneers from Detroit would no doubt savor these Saturday nights, every March through September, on what is now a concrete track and infield at the West Coast’s oldest auto racing facility. After all, where else can you find all the cars “made in America”?

They start arriving hours before sundown, clad in a hodgepodge of fashions from T-shirts inscribed with logos of Jack Daniels and Harley-Davidson to halter tops, blue jeans, football jerseys, baseball caps and plastic necklaces that glow in the dark.

And when the parking lots fill up with everything from motorcycles to four-wheel-drive vehicles--and even a stretch limo--the stragglers park in either direction along busy Soledad Canyon Road, walking a half-mile or so to the old wooden grandstand that seats nearly 7,000.

From the first green flag at 7 p.m. until the last checkered flag shortly past midnight, the crowd of 5,630 seems mesmerized by the throaty, high-speed frenzy on the speedway’s one-third-mile oval.

Many spectators are relatives or friends of drivers, most of whom compete strictly as hobbyists and pour money into 1970s and ‘80s cars that would otherwise turn up in scrap heaps.

A college-age spectator, Karen Simmon of Santa Clarita, sits with a companion, Lisa Blynn, waiting for their boyfriends--Ted Beckman, 28, and his brother Jack, 27--to compete in the “train race,” a relatively new attraction conceived by the track’s promoter, Ray Wilkings. Each train, consisting of three dilapidated stock cars chained bumper to bumper, fish-tails wildly through a figure-eight course--a driver in the front car, no one in the middle car, a teammate steering and braking the “caboose.” Family ties and friendships aside, the speedway’s long-term popularity, Simmon says, is easily explained: “It’s the only thing to do in Santa Clarita.”

Others come for what they say is “cheap family entertainment,” with a family section where alcohol is banned. Fred Wolgamotti, 52, of Quartz Hill, who was laid off as a Lockheed mechanic, says he no longer competes as a stock car driver because “I can’t afford it.” Now, as he watches from the grandstand, he adds: “Here, you pay only $12 for five or six hours of entertainment. You can’t beat it anywhere else.”

Still others openly crave the speed and fury and potential danger woven into stock car racing’s subculture.

“I love it, knowing there’s a chance somebody’s going to crash,” Teresa Marrone, 33, of Santa Clarita says, watching with her husband and two small sons. “And I think that’s why most everyone else is here, too.”

Actually, collisions are surprisingly few this night, even as drivers jockey in close quarters on a track of only three car widths, often at straightaway speeds exceeding 100 m.p.h.

And injuries requiring hospitalization are said by promoters to occur so rarely now, thanks to stricter safety standards, fireproof clothing and reinforced roll cages that keep cars from crumbling, that longtime observers such as Virgil Kilpatrick, 49, the speedway’s public address announcer, hardly seem to sweat out the hazards and close calls.

“Oh, we’ve got a little bit of a fire brewing under the 28 car,” Kilpatrick says into the microphone, his tone as laconic as that of an airline pilot who nonchalantly reminds white-knuckled passengers that the plane has encountered turbulence.

For most of the night, however, Kilpatrick’s voice oozes excitement like that of a carnival pitchman. He describes the crackups requiring wreckers: “My goodness! It looks like the drivers are gonna be all right!”

He misses nary a fender-bender or those close calls that elicit gasps from the crowd during the figure-eight races: “Watch out, folks! We’ve got a lotta racing in the intersection! Whoa, Nellie!” He warns youngsters not to stand beside a wire fence that stretches along the raceway: “That fence keeps cars on the track, but parts can fly up and you can lose your fingers.”

And during a lull, Kilpatrick teases veteran driver Dan Press about his hard-charging tactics. Press responds good-naturedly through a public-address hookup from inside his Chevy Lumina.

“That’s what they come here for--a lot of excitement--and that’s what they’re getting!” says Press, who had come from Vader, Wash., and would go on to win the night’s main event--a 100-mile race on the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing’s Southwest Tour.

True to auto racing’s commercial extravagance, Kilpatrick also never misses an opportunity to plug door-prize sponsors such as Gus’ Tools: “Gus is donating a power screwdriver and a cordless drill!” Lee Baumgarten, the track’s director of marketing, also weighs in with an announcement that King Auto Supply will give away a new auto engine. “It’s a good deal,” Baumgarten tells the crowd, “especially if you need one!”

Not to be overlooked, either, are the personal touches aimed at giving spectators a bigger stake in the show. Promoters invite announcements to be read to the crowd by Kilpatrick, messages scrawled by the fans on a yellow legal pad affixed to a clipboard near the microphone. Examples:

* “Brandon Sooch--Happy 10th birthday.”

* “Congratulations to the Wilson family on the birth of Jacob Nolyn today!”

* “Congratulations, Jeff and Carrie, who are getting married. . . . Jeff, it’s not too late!”

Saugus Speedway endures, an unchanging island in crosswinds of change. It was known as Baker Ranch Rodeo, hard by the railroad tracks where “Buffalo Tom” Vernon, on Nov. 10, 1929, derailed the northbound West Coast Limited No. 59, forcing passengers at gunpoint to surrender cash totaling $200. He was apprehended three weeks later in Oklahoma, served 35 years in prison and was paroled in 1964. He died in 1965.

“Somehow, I like to think that he is still around and still planning another great train robbery,” Jerry Reynolds, a local historian, once wrote.

Starting Oct. 26, those same tracks will bear Metrolink’s commuter trains to and from downtown Los Angeles. A platform station under construction will sit next to the speedway, which has outlived others: Ontario Speedway, Riverside International Raceway, Ascot Park and Gilmore Stadium, among others.

These and other tracks fell victim to development and complaints by nearby residents of noise and congestion.

“The advantage here is that we’re isolated,” says Gary Smith, a Saugus assistant starter who with his wife, Muriel, a scorekeeper, commutes each Saturday from Long Beach.

Indeed, across Soledad Canyon Road from the speedway’s sprawling property is the dry bed of the Santa Clara River. Aside from the commuter train station, the only other planned project nearby is a municipal government complex said to be at least a decade away from construction, on a hill overlooking the speedway and station.

Still another key to the speedway’s staying power, Lee Baumgarten said, is its appeal to everyday motorists. “They watch these street stocks run,” he says, “and they can easily identify with them. They’ll say, ‘Hey, that car’s like the one my wife drives!’

“And besides, no dirt flies in your face here,” he says. “We run a good, clean show.”

Although the crowd on this night is well-behaved, a security guard pointed out that rowdyism can be a problem in mid-season. “It happens when the weather gets hot and some people drink too much,” he says.

Even though Saugus Speedway comes across as red-white-and-true-blue American, some of its most popular cuisine is international: pizza and nachos.

The concession stands stay busy far into the night, as do souvenir vendors who peddle traditional clothing that bears Saugus Speedway logos and items such as wooden train whistles, children’s coloring books and an assortment of decals including one that reads: “Will Work for Sex.”

Near midnight, a 50ish woman who sells refreshments outside the grandstand says she cannot understand why crowds flock to Saugus, week after week.

“I’m not interested in the races,” says the woman, who declines to give her name, “but my son is. He sometimes drives here, and one time he hit the wall going 80 miles an hour. I’m glad I wasn’t there to watch.

“I asked him, ‘Why do you do this? Don’t you take enough risks in your life?’ He said, ‘Ma, I love it.’ ” The woman slowly shakes her head. “There’s no money in it for most of these people, so I guess they’ve got to love it.”

Then she looks at her customer and adds: “I don’t want to say this, but I think people who watch all this must be of a lower intellect. You know what I mean?” She pauses. “But I guess there must be something worthwhile about it. People are under heavy-duty pressures all week. Maybe they come here just to relax. And, maybe that’s not all bad.”