Hot-Rod Heaven : Palmdale Drag Strip Endures, Thanks to Its Diverse and Devoted Fans

What was destined to become Los Angeles County’s most enduring drag strip got a rocky start.

Which was only appropriate. It opened 27 years ago beside a Palmdale sand and gravel quarry.

And it was a rocky start indeed. the fledgling drag strip was underfunded, tottered into bankruptcy and closed the next year. Other drag racers, who lived to burn the quarter-mile but had little business sense, opened and closed the strip under various names between 1966 and 1979.

Still, the Palmdale strip held on, unlike about a dozen other Southern California tracks--such as Lions, Fontana and Irwindale--that have permanently closed in the past 20 years because nearby residents complained about noise and congestion or because they lay in developers’ paths.

One key to the strip’s staying power is its isolated location, about four miles from the heart of the city, where the roar of engines is buffered by the surrounding quarry. Even more key, perhaps, are the dedicated and diverse racing enthusiasts--young and old, black and white--who gather in the heat and the cold, whether the prize is cash, a trophy or just bragging rights.

“There is a place for everybody at the race track, from the strip to the stands to the guy chomping down on a corn dog at the concession stand,” says one racer.

In short, if you can race, you’re accepted, the racers say. No one knows this better than a 46-year-old transsexual racer--no names, please--with dark blond hair, gaudy gold earrings and a revved-up station wagon capable of hitting 125 m.p.h. in 10 seconds.

“I’m accepted as a racer and a person,” she said, after drawing deeply from a cigarette. “I speak from experience. Racers accept me for me, not for what I used to be or what I’ve done. It’s not a matter of sex. You don’t need to be a man, or a woman, or either to enjoy racing cars, although some men do hate to be beaten by a woman!”

Stability came to the Palmdale strip in 1980, when owners Bernie and Anne Longjohn took the helm of what has evolved into an Antelope Valley institution. The track, now operating as Los Angeles County Raceway, hosts more than 100 races year-round, drawing 200,000 spectators.

Many credit Bernie Longjohn’s ability to get along with the varied racing crowd as the reason for the track’s longevity. It’s quite a mixed group.

Los Angeles County Raceway draws drivers and fans from all over, even during the brutal winter months. One of its biggest events, the Hangover Nationals this month, drew more than 700 cars. Longjohn divides the racing faithful into three groups:

* Old-Timers or Nostalgia Racers, who are 40 to 50 years old, have money and own homes.

* Grudge Racers, who are 20 to 30 years old and race new, street-legal cars, such as the Mustang 5.0.

* Joe Spectators, of all ages.

The bleachers can hold 10,000 fans, but the bigger crowds come when the weather is warmer, especially for the once-a-month professional races that draw top-fuel dragsters and funny cars, held May through October.

In the winter, with high-desert temperatures in the low 40s and frigid winds blowing, spectators are limited to a handful of the most devoted, bundled in denim, leather and blankets, sipping hot chocolate or coffee by the gallon. If babies snuggled in snowsuits start to cry, they can barely be heard above the throaty roar of engines.

Fans gather to watch hot rods, two at a time, race on a straight quarter-mile track next to the quarry pit. When the “Christmas tree’s” lights flash from amber to green, the drivers accelerate at full throttle, their speeds displayed on a large electronic sign.

As described in a brochure for the strip’s racing school, it’s an experience “like nothing else you will ever encounter, short of flying a jet fighter plane.”

Keith Holloway agrees. Holloway, 35, a wiry firefighter from Pasadena, running a ’66 Chevy II, packing 750 horsepower, said he was born “under the hood” and “baptized by horsepower” into drag racing at the age of 7, with a Sunday-after-church ride in a family friend’s hot rod.

Since then, Holloway said at the Hangover Nationals, the thrill of the sport has cost him and others much more than the cost of building a car and price of admission fees to run, which can range from $10 to $100.

“You’re going to get in trouble with your wives, girlfriends and homeboys who don’t race,” Holloway said, under a dark-blue beanie cuffed down over his ears. His grease-stained Levi’s jacket was buttoned up to his neck.

“Everybody here has spent their last dime, burned their VISA card up, and fixed everybody’s car in the neighborhood for money to run,” he said.

Other racers painted pictures of far less struggle.

From Santa Barbara, and the toasty warmth of a red Chevy pickup truck cab, Sharon Carroll towed husband David’s glistening white ’54 Corvette bearing a license frame that says “Grumpa’s Toy” to the starting area, surrounded by hot rods garishly emblazoned with names such as Expensive Habits, Blazin’ Beth, Night Moves, and Nex-t’ Sex.

Carroll wore her gray hair clipped short and had two diamond rings on her fingers with sculptured deep-maroon nails, overlaid with gold and silver pin-stripes.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s our anniversary or my birthday or his, if they fall on a race day, we’re always here,” Carroll said.

The Carrolls have been “here” since 1961, when they bought the ‘Vette for $700. Since then, their two children, who “loved “ spending weekends at strips, have grown and married, and the ‘Vette has been continually refined.

When David’s race came, Sharon left the cab for a few minutes to videotape his run. Back inside and at the finish line, she charted the lane he ran, the time, the speed and the car’s suspension settings.

Phyllis and Dennis Smith of Ventura, another husband-and-wife team, said coming to the track together for more than two decades was a good way to make friends and strengthen their marriage.

“We’ve been married 28 years, and one time I came here without her--and I made a solemn vow not to do it again, because I did not enjoy it,” Dennis said.

From a deeply polished 1990 Black Mustang 5.0, another racer, Brent Shaver, 28, of Huntington Beach, had few words while waiting to run.

“Here you’ve got peace of mind,” he said coolly. “There’s no police.”

Up in the stands, a white-haired man in a black denim trench coat with a Chevy emblem tattooed on an ear lobe, watched intently through dark sunglasses as his son’s ’55 Chevy was readied to race.

One of the sunglass lenses was covered with a shamrock decal to hide an eye blinded by a falling transmission. The son’s turquoise and white Chevy is similar to one he raced 27 years ago.

“He gets into the motor deeper than I do,” the man grumbled, complaining that the son revved the engine too much. His son lost the race, but he complimented the young man nonetheless on how fast he “got off the line.”

The professional racers who come to Palmdale compete for cash purses of $1,000 or more. But most racers are amateurs who pay to run against other racers or by themselves to test their times.

“With the exception of the guys who are sponsored by someone like Budweiser, no one makes any money drag racing,” Longjohn said.

No one has been killed or seriously injured at the Palmdale track since it opened. Longjohn said that’s because drag racing is safer than oval-track racing and strict racing association safety standards require equipment like reinforced roll cages for the faster cars.

“I’ve seen cars spinning around on fire and thought, ‘My God! The guy’s never gonna make it,’ and you get down there and the guy’s out and kickin’ the car because it didn’t do what he expected it to,” he said.

The strip’s history goes back to 1964, when 15 investors put up $4,000 to build the strip on quarry land that is still owned by Frank and Vonnie Lane of Quartz Hill. Glen Easterling, 60, one of the original investors and the track’s first manager, said inexperience was part of the problem.

“We could have been better businessmen,” Easterling said. “By the time we got it built, we were scraping the bottom of the barrel. We had no advertising budget. The tower was the only thing built to code. We didn’t have power, and we’d have to rent a generator before the meets.”

Fate also intervened.

“Our first big event was called the National Gold Cup,” Easterling said. “We needed about 6,000 people to break even, and it was the night of the Watts riots, and everybody stayed home to watch it on TV. We ended up losing about $10,000.”

Though tired from wear, the strip looks much as it did nearly three decades ago. The tower and guardrails are covered with thick white paint. In the quarry near the strip stand a dozen piles of sand and gravel.

Within 10 years, after the quarry next to the strip is fully excavated to 200 feet below ground, Longjohn said he hopes to move down into the hole. The move would further buffer noise and perhaps ensure harmony with future development in Palmdale and on nearby unincorporated land.

With the sun setting against a trinity of quarry conveyor towers and distant snowcapped mountains, Keith Holloway went back to help his entourage of buddies push his faded sky-blue Chevy to the start line for his last run of the day.

He turned his back to the cold wind.

“Here, it’s all about horsepower--it’s not about color,” said Holloway, who is black. “Society and economics doesn’t make any difference either.

“This is like a cult-like enclave. Here there’s a camaraderie, and we’ve all paid the same dues.”