Making Tracks Elsewhere

Dave Phipps races with a “For Sale” sign in the window of his stock car. Call it a sign of the times.

A year ago, Phipps, among the winningest drivers in the history of Saugus Speedway, was speeding toward a fifth consecutive Grand American Modified division championship and the eighth track title in his 16-year career at the one third-mile paved oval in Santa Clarita.

Today, Phipps, 48, among dozens of dispossessed drivers forced to find a race track when Saugus abruptly shut down July 19, 1995, is a part-time competitor at Bakersfield’s Mesa Marin Raceway and considering calling it a career.

“If I sell it, I quit. I’m gone,” said Phipps, who lives in Simi Valley. “I love racing, but I don’t want to travel. Saugus closing down really put a damper on it for me.”

For many drivers, the closure of Saugus--smack in the middle of its 56th season--meant the end of their racing careers. For those willing to continue, driving around a race track now means driving on the freeway more than 100 miles with stock car in tow.

“The die-hards have found a place to race,” said Jeff Drummen of Northridge, a former regular in Saugus’ Pro Stock division now racing at Mesa Marin. “But a lot of the guys have hung it up.”

Like many of their brethren, Drummen and Phipps have flocked to Bakersfield, which has inherited the greatest number of former Saugus drivers. Perhaps the most successful is Sean Woodside of Saugus, a former Saugus Sportsman competitor and now the points leader of Mesa Marin’s Late Model Sportsman division.

The rosters of Mesa Marin’s five divisions include several former Saugus regulars, and the track’s Super Street Stock division--of which Drummen is the points leader--was created with members of Saugus’ Pro Stock division in mind.

“The [specifications] for the cars is similar to those they had at Saugus,” said Marion Collins, owner of Mesa Marin. “It’s pretty much one complete division that came out of that track.”

Others still in need of a racing fix motor each weekend to Kern County Raceway in Rosamond, a track now home to several former Saugus Pro Stock drivers. And a few have even found their way to Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino and El Cajon Speedway near San Diego.

But no one, it seems, has found smooth driving since Saugus closed.

“It’s become too much of a strain and it costs too much,” Phipps said. “I don’t mind the drive [to Bakersfield] in the morning, but I don’t like coming home. The first night we were there, I got home at 3:15 in the morning.”

Phipps ranks only seventh in the Grand Am points standings at Mesa Marin, largely because he has missed three of eight main events. Dave Blankenship of Reseda, a longtime competitor of Phipps at Saugus, is more consistent and is leading the Grand Am points race.

Blankenship, like many drivers, said he enjoys driving on Mesa Marin’s half-mile, banked oval and plans to continue racing. But things just aren’t the same.

“I kind of always wanted to race at Bakersfield, but Saugus was so convenient I didn’t,” Blankenship said. “The thing I miss about Saugus is it was the local hang. I used to park in the pits near the chain-link fence by the grandstand. I knew people and talked to them through the fence. It’s not like that [in Bakersfield]. After the races, I load up and get out of there. I don’t know many people and I have a long drive home.”

Local drivers ultimately might find racing a thing of the past. Saugus, a former rodeo arena that was converted to racing in 1939, was among only five stock-car tracks left in Southern California and the oldest racetrack operating in the western United States.

The track closed because a structural engineer’s report revealed the grandstands did not meet standards. However, drivers and city officials have speculated for years that the speedway was not a money-maker and that its principal owners--the Bonelli family’s Rodeo Land Co.--would close the facility and sell the land for profit.

Benjamin Bonelli, president of Rodeo Land Co., did not return phone calls for this story. The facility remains home to a weekly swap meet, in operation since 1963.

Over the years, Ascot, Riverside and several other tracks in Southern California were closed by owners with more profitable ideas for using the land.

Ventura Raceway remains the nearest race track for Valley-area drivers and fans, but the quarter-mile dirt oval has benefited little from the closure of Saugus.

“We never really picked up anybody from Saugus,” said Cliff Morgan, Ventura’s general manager. “It was a paved track and we’re dirt, and it’s almost like the twain don’t meet.”

It seems unlikely that Ventura and Mesa Marin will pick up regular drivers.

“I still love to race,” Phipps said. “I’ve gone to El Cajon and Kern County. But the reason guys race is for fun. They quit racing when the fun isn’t greater anymore than the hassle or the expense.”