The Sun Sets on 65 years of Continuous Racing at Orange Show Speedway San Berdo, CA

[carl s]

Photo by Laurence Deutsch

Article in Racing West by Jim Short:

SAN BERNARDINO, California — – There apparently will be no stock car racing at Orange Show Speedway in 2012.

California Event Management officials Mark and Bonnie Brinksma were informed by e-mail Nov. 23 that the management of the National Orange Show Events Center had “decided to take an alternative route and the track will not be available for next year. There will be no stock car racing at the Speedway next year.”

Mark Brinksma, who had been working with NOS general manager Dan Jimenez and potential sponsors to plan a 2012 season of approximately 20 events, said he and wife Bonnie were stunned when they were informed of the NOS decision in e-mails from Executive Assistant and Board of Directors liaison Maureen Murphy.

The Brinksmas withheld any announcement regarding the speedway to have time to explore their options at OSS and elsewhere in the area and the be sure they could remove all their equipment from the speedway without interference.

Mark Brinksma said he thinks the decision is attributable to the fact the contract CEM signed in February included options for 2012 and 2013. He said “the only way to keep us out was by closing the track,” and in making that decision NOS management has shown “a complete disdain and disregard for the racing community that has supported them for over 60 years.”

If the unilateral decision by NOS management is final and the persistent rumors of racing being curtailed at Irwindale Speedway prove valid, area drivers could be left without a paved oval short-track in 2012.

“We need the racing community to stick together,” Brinksma said. “Orange Show management and the track are not the racing community. We need the racers to stay together and look at moving everything somewhere else, find a place where we can lay out a track and put up some bleachers and go racing.

“It would be grass roots, flat-track racing. It wouldn’t be a case of breaking ground and building a new track, not in this economy. It will take the support of the whole community to pull it off. There are a lot of people in our pits with the knowledge and the equipment it takes to get things done.

“We’ve been talking to some people and we’re looking for areas that might work. We’ll be glad to keep working on it if the racers are interested. We just need to know how they feel and what they think.”

It’s obviously not something the Brinksmas were anticipating when they began planning for next season.

The initial e-mail from Murphy, sent just before 9 a.m. on Nov. 23, said: “It has been roughly four weeks since our meeting and we still have not heard from you regarding the 2012 racing season. I know Dan spoke to Mark and he stated that he needed a couple extra days to speak with sponsors, however that was two weeks ago. With that being said, unfortunately we have decided to take an alternative route and the track will not be available for next year. We would like to thank you for all your hard work this year at the speedway and wish you luck with all your future endeavors. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the NOS. Have a nice weekend.”

The second e-mail, in response to an inquiry from Bonnie Brinksma, said: “Yes, you are correct. There will be no stock car racing at the Speedway next year.”

Mark Brinksma said that around October 31st he had informed Jimenez they needed to consult with a sponsor who was out of the area before finalizing dates, but that “at no time was there ever a deadline set by NOS for talks about the speedway.” As late as November 10th, Bonnie Brinksma wrote to NOS requesting the list of dates and discussed additional dates.

Orange Show Speedway, on the southern edge of the Events Center grounds, is a banked, paved quarter-mile oval. Its inaugural race was held on May 1, 1947, and it has been used as a motor sports facility without interruption since then. That span of 65 years makes it the oldest continuously-operated track in the state.

In recent years, however, schedules for the next racing seasons at the historic track had not been finalized until December or later. In 2009, the agreement between Rick McCray and NOS wasn’t finalized until mid-February. Again this year, when CEM replaced McCray’s Best in the West Racing, the contract wasn’t signed until mid-February.

For more information, and to let CEM know your thoughts on relocating to a new facility, contact Mark or Bonnie Brinksma by e-mail at CaliforniaEventManagement@hotmail.com. Updates and more information will be available starting tomorrow on our website, www.californiaspeedjams.com.

Source: Jim Short

[NoviVespa]

One after another of these short tracks are closing. This is bad for your major motorsports bodies, NASCAR, IndyCar, ARCA, etc. Your future fans always came from watching the short trackers.

[KevMcNJ]

What was the comment about Irwindale all about?

[carl s]

Rumors of Toyota pulling out and Lucas making an offer to take over sponsorship that was refused by Irwindale lease holders.

What was the comment about Irwindale all about?

[JThur1]

I can't say I didn't see this coming, especially with the economy in the area, but it's tough for me as Orange Show Speedway is where I was introduced to racing. A guy my dad worked with raced stock cars there and gave dad some free passes. We were pretty much hooked right away.

Many famous drivers turned laps at OSS on their way up, along with some local talent that ranged from very good to amazingly colorful. The weekly stock car races even produced a couple of drivers that gained some notoriety after they moved, D.K. Ulrich and Jerry Weeks.

[Stick500]

Rumors of Toyota pulling out and Lucas making an offer to take over sponsorship that was refused by Irwindale lease holders.

so the "Irwindale lease holders" are willing to allow the track to go under? What's in it for them? That track is out in junkyard land IIRC.

Wonder if Swede Savage ever hopped in a stocker at O.C. for fun- I understand most of his early racing was in flatttrack dirt bikes down at Ascot and then road racing motorcycles and finally road racing cars, so perhaps his only connection with the OC track was as a spectator (he grew up in San B.)

I got to race a little desert buggy in one of Mickey Thompson's Off-Road Gran Prixs held at Orange County in the late '80s and I understood the history about the track even then. Very tight for a desert course, but IIRC we put on quite a show!

[JThur1]

so the "Irwindale lease holders" are willing to allow the track to go under? What's in it for them? That track is out in junkyard land IIRC.

Wonder if Swede Savage ever hopped in a stocker there for fun- I understand most of his early racing was in flatttrack dirt bikes down at Ascot and then road racing motorcycles and finally road racing cars, so perhaps his only connection with the OC track was as a spectator (he grew up in San B.)

Irwindale isn't junkyard land, it's rock quarry land. The track is on a piece of land between two deep pits.

I'm not aware of "Swede" Savage ever running a stock car at Orange Show, but it is possible that he raced bikes on the paved oval. They actually had some flat track bike races on the paved 1/4 in the mid-60's. Savage did a lot of his bike racing at little Trojan Speedway, a 1/8 mile dirt oval in South Gate (where Pancho Carter, Johnny Parsons Jr., Dean Thompson and Bobby Olivero raced TQs).

So Cal's Inland Empire produced some drivers with ties to Indy racing, Savage and his buddy Billy "The Kid" Scott were from San Bernardino, George Connor from Rialto, Rex Mays from Riverside and Mel Hansen was from Bloomington.

[Niseguy]

Isn't that whole Irwindale area a superfund site? Losts of heavy metal foundries etc there which is why the speedways were built there. Even the raiders looked at a stadium there, of course funded by the local area.

[comfortably numb]

Actually near this sight is a proposed stadium site--will probably lose out to the L.A. Convention Center group:

http://www.losangelesfootballstadium.com/

[JThur1]

Isn't that whole Irwindale area a superfund site? Losts of heavy metal foundries etc there which is why the speedways were built there. Even the raiders looked at a stadium there, of course funded by the local area.

Not that I'm aware of. Irwindale is mainly quarries and light industry. There has been some contamination of ground water, but that came from the adjacent community, Baldwin Park. I'm not aware of much in the way of foundries and the likes in Irwindale. It was rocky, fallow ground where the San Gabriel River deposited a lot of gravel. One of the dragstrips and Speedway 605 were built on somewhat better land, and they gave way to a brewery and light industry respectively. The first dragstrip was taken out by quarrying.

Now, California Speedway was built on the site of the Kaiser Steel Mill and there was a lot of clean-up there.

[JThur1]

Also proposed site for this, though they will probably lose out to the L.A. Convention Center group:

http://www.losangelesfootballstadium.com/

That's not Irwindale, that's a few miles further southeast in the City of Industry.

EDIT: close to 20 miles actually.