A speedway, a spectacle, a sensational Saturday night
In L.A., the road less traveled is a speedway. No, not the 405 at 2 a.m. This, literally, is a speedway, the last surviving car track in Los Angeles County. It somehow slips — revs, quivers, growls — under the radar among the gravel pits of Irwindale.
Beautiful.
Built on testosterone, flop sweat and gigantic globs of flame, Irwindale might be the answer to your kids’ “there’s nothing to do” lament on the second day of summer vacation.
Take them for a little warm-weather excitement — no lines, no hassles, no “event pricing,” none of the usual L.A. bull spit — to check out this charming little track. After years of difficulties, and bankruptcy drama, the speedway motors on, offering family entertainment for the price of a movie ticket.
At Irwindale Speedway, the living is easy, the spectacle … well, you decide. Felonious? Fiery? Silly? Astonishing? (In a few minutes, I’m going to tell you how they flew a bus into another bus the other night.)
Seriously, you could roast marshmallows on all the burning wreckage. At times, this place resembles one of those movies in which Schwarzenegger emerges out of walls of smoke, carrying a carbine and a scowl.
They blow up a lot of stuff here — did you get that? Imagine chemistry class when the teacher fails to show. Or what the Fourth of July used to be like with the young delinquent down the street.
Sure, Irwindale is a standard, well-regarded short track with Saturday night NASCAR events and a drag strip every Thursday night … the usual stock-car boilerplate.
But Irwindale is also the minor league baseball of speedways. It’s here to entertain. So some weekends also feature demolition derbies, RV races, car soccer featuring a huge metal ball. And tonight, a series of Evel Knievel-caliber stunts that sometimes fail but mostly work.
Honestly, there were moments — so frayed, so eerie with flames — when it felt like someone slipped acid in my Ovaltine.
Meet Dr. Danger. He is one of the hosts tonight, a stunt expert and a Rembrandt with a wick and a can of gasoline.
Dr. Danger was in prison for a while (smuggling), but now he’s back among us, fortunately.
“I set my first car on fire when I was 10,” he says as he fiddles with a fuse, all the while wiggling with excitement, a live wire himself.
“I’ve had all my guts taken out,” he explains of past stunt failures. “I’ve lost most of my intestines.”
Feels fine now, though. Turns out you don’t need so many of your intestines as you might think. Over the years, he’s been in 15 ambulances to hospitals for stunts that combine jumps with pyrotechnics. It’s interesting work, though probably not for everybody.
“I’m only here because God wants me to be,” the Sacramento native says.
Dr. Danger — or just Danger to his friends, there may in fact be no medical degree — is orchestrating tonight’s main event: that flying bus thingy. He performed it a few years ago on “America’s Got Talent.” Rescue teams cut him out of that one.
“That was the greatest thing I ever saw,” judge Howard Stern said at the time.
Tonight, the launch ramp is only 3 inches wider than the school bus that they will fling into a 40-foot city bus. Dr. Danger is worried that the bus will skid sideways off the ramp and not even reach the city bus: bustus interruptus.
Naturally, everyone is very pumped about this, and a little on edge, including the old city bus itself, which sits up on its fanny, as if sassing the other bus.
“For 15 bucks, for four hours of entertainment, you can’t do better,” says spectator Rob St. Aubin, who arrived three hours early to get a front-row seat for the 7 p.m. show.
“It’s wholesome, inexpensive and fun for the whole family,” says Tara Georgenes, who is here with her husband, Chris, and their two kids, ages 9 and 13. “Last year we came out for the first time and it was great. My husband wants to make it a tradition.”
Indeed, Irwindale is far more family friendly than it may sound. Jovial crowd, nothing raucous or menacing, besides what’s going on inside the oval itself. Under the grandstand, there is the ping of kettle corn being stirred, and one booth serves up stuffed baked potatoes big as footballs.
Between events, moms dance with babies in their arms; dads smile and stare into their beers.
There is lots of action on the track but long gaps too. Some of the setups take a while, and local firefighters are summoned at one point to douse a burning RV that won’t flame out.
Mostly, though, there is the anticipation of the next event, which track president and co-emcee Tim Huddleston sets up over the public address system. A cool breeze kicks in, clearing most of the smoke. Van Halen blares from mega-speakers.
Did I mention it’s kind of loud? This isn’t your local library. Bring those metal earmuffs for the younger kids. At one point, I stuffed napkins in my ears.
As the night progresses, a stunt driver named Killer Cowboy launches a Ford into a wall of five stacked vehicles, including a van, which becomes his bull’s-eye. Boom. Ouch. Track attendants rush in, and they somehow wiggle the dazed driver through a window and out of the wreckage.
“I want to thank you all for coming out,” Killer Cowboy tells the crowd. “We couldn’t do this without all you in the stands.”
But nobody’s going anywhere yet. They’ve been awaiting the bus stunt all night, the one with dubious odds and questionable consequences. Dr. Danger’s plan is to have a driver named Rock Star fly the school bus into the city bus, so that the whole colossal mess flops backwards in a carnal, shrieking, unforgettable sheet-metal conquest.
And, indeed, it does happen, out here amid the gravel pits, two blocks from the middle of nowhere.
The crowd oohs, the crowd aahs. Spectators turn to one another and beam, then they dance, bump shoulders and slap hands, like celebrants on an NBA bench.
On a Saturday night, under a high-beam moon, they’ve gotten that most elusive of L.A. experiences:
Their money’s worth.
Essentials
Irwindale Speedway, 500 Speedway Dr., in Irwindale, is about an hour from downtown Los Angeles. Admission is $15; kids 6-12 are $7, 5 and under are free. Most racing takes places on Thursday (drag races) and Saturdays (races and stunts). A “Night of Destruction” is scheduled for July 4, with races, stunts and a major fireworks show. Info: (626) 358-1100, www.IrwindaleSpeedway.com
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