Welcome to the Rat Fink Social Network

Willow Springs hosts day of drag racing Facility open to racing for 7 hours Saturday

Willow Springs hosts day of drag racing
Facility open to racing for 7 hours Saturday
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Thursday, December 10, 2009.

By BRIAN GOLDEN
Valley Press Staff Writer
Parking spots at the mall won't be the only place in the Valley two cars will be competing Saturday.

While some wives spend the day Christmas shopping, their spouses will spend the day grudge racing at Willow Springs International Raceway.

After six weeks' recess prompted by uncomfortable night-time temperatures and a busy November calendar at the 650-acre motorsports complex at 70th Street West and Rosamond Boulevard, drag racing returns with an all-day show.

Gates open at 7 a.m., with racing from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

For $10 per driver and per race, grudge racers can make the pass down the eighth-of-a-mile strip of the main straightaway of Willow Springs' 2.6-mile road course as many times as they care to.

Since Bill Huth, Willow Springs' legendary owner, opened his facility to drag racing in September as a public safety gesture to curtail street racing, track operators have been gratified by the turnouts and the response.

Chris Huth, executive vice-president and general manager of Willow Springs International Motorsports Park, has already announced he will install an electronic scoring and timing system for drag racing in 2010.

"We don't really have any plans to take this any further than what we have right now," Chris Huth said. "But that's not to say that it couldn't happen down the road. We've actually looked into finding a place that would be big enough and a good spot to build a drag strip.

"They're quite expensive, though. We're talking millions of dollars. But Dad's actually gone out and looked at a couple of locations where the access turned out to be bad."

The opening Wednesday night in September resumed drag racing at Willow Springs for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Throughout Willow Springs' sprawling 650 acres, there are famous racing photos. But one of the Huth family's favorites is a scene from those early 1960s drag racing years, which Bill Huth had enlarged into a 6-foot mural that now hangs in his son's office.

Those were the days when Huth's neighbor, a farmer, provided his tractor to pull dragsters out of the wintry six-foot snow drifts that served as the run-off area.

Chris Huth said he hopes observers catch a different kind of drift 49 years later - that the Valley's drag racing community is big enough and passionate enough to support any investor who wants to build an heir to Los Angeles County Raceway.

LACR was consumed by its Granite Construction landlord and ended a 44-year run in Littlerock on July 29, 2007.

"We're not actively pursuing building one, but we hope someone will," said Chris Huth. "If we can make this successful doing what we do, it may encourage an investor to come forward and put up the money and take the chance.

"It's a pretty good shot right now. There's enough enthusiasm and definitely enough population to spell success for a dragstrip."

It's not just the private sector that's watching.

Norm Hickling, the field representative for Fifth District Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, has reached out to the LACR community.

With a stated goal of trying to target more economic investment in the Lake Los Angeles area, Supervisor Antonovich has explored the possibility of public-private partnership in which Los Angeles County could provide the land and Valley investors, the jobs and businesses.

Some have likened the search for a successor to LACR to the six-year quest for minor league baseball in the Valley that culminated in 1995 with the arrival of the Lancaster JetHawks and the building of Lancaster Municipal Stadium.

To demonstrate their determination to support California League baseball, Valley fans accounted for half the group ticket sales of the Adelanto-based High Desert Mavericks by 1994.

A year later, they enthusiastically backed the upstart Antelope Valley Ravens, an independent league team. The team folded before it ever played a game - but three weeks later, the Lancaster City Council approve the JetHawks/stadium deal.

"Anything that keeps the need for a dragstrip in the news is good," said Jeffrey Hillinger, the founder of SaveLACR.org who was elected to the Littlerock Town Council in November. "You've got to start somewhere. The people who're going out (to Willow Springs) to race aren't racing on the streets anymore, and that's a good thing.

"They're also demonstrating the passion we have up here for drag racing. They're showing there's a need for it, and they're showing they'll support it, which is all good."

Thus, Saturday will be a day of drag racing for parking spots, and the future.

All day, drag racers will be turning Willow Springs into a giant letter to Santa Claus.

bgolden@avpress.com