Just off of a whim, im curious if theres anything that we can do about this. This last saturday the street drags at fontana, my family and i got to the speedway at 10am, to wait in line down randall (the line that everybody lines up on) Which is great, we were about car 65. Well when they let the gates open, everybody like stormed cherry, and cut infront of everybody that had been waiting for hours, We were lucky that we even got in we were cars like 340 after everybody stormed in off of cherry.

Does anyone have an idea, maybe we can call and suggest, directing traffic and let everyone in that was there first? Any ideas?

 

Exact same thing happened two months ago at the last meet. Maybe open the gates earlier and let people line up in the lot inside the raceway. Allen

 

I haven't been to the street drags, but isn't this the same thing that happens everytime they run street drags? I seem to read this same complaint after every street drag event.

 

Bring a 12-gauge and an attitude

 

Call and complain in a nice, constructive manner:

California Dragway
9300 Cherry Avenue
Fontana, CA 92335
909-429-5060

 

I am with Kevin on this, those of you that went I would call and complain, that is crazy that there are so many people showing up that you can't even make it into the 500 cars if you are there and waiting

 

The bad thing is you have to wait maybe 4 hours to know if you can get in. They should issue a number or something as people show up. That way you will know up front it you can get in and not have to hang around half the day. Some people travel a long way for these events. Allen

 

It's a crap shoot. unless the first arrivals require everyone to take a number, good luck with 1000 cars for 400 run cards, it wont work.
No matter how early they open the gate people will still be waiting for the gates to open. It's no different than the Rose Parade. They had to set a time limit, no one camped out before I think noon Friday.
What will happen is the cops will require the track to post temporary no parking signs everywhere.
Pressure needs to be applied where their grant money comes from. The bottom line is, there is not anywhere near enough track time for the number of racers in this area. That track could run 400 cars a night 3 or 4 nights a week.
The bottom line at LVMS is in addition to existing fri nights and other dates the thursday night drags have about 8 dates scheduled and if popular enough more dates will be added. This is from the Pres of LVMS.

 

As was said by Dean and Randy before, this is a side job for most of the officials. They have family and friends they want to see. If the track is open all the time, that cuts into their free time.

But I cant see why there cant be drag racing at least once a month, and preferably twice. We only have two quarter mile tracks in SoCal, and Fontana knows they are the "best."

Randy, they only allow 400 cars in.

 

Well I suppose that is good and bad....

Good if you are one of the 400 and bad if you aren't

 

Do they get paid extra to oversee the SLD's or is it strictly extra hours without any additional compensation?

If they don't get paid to be there, I can see why they wouldn't want to be there very often. No one wants to work for free. Especially watching over a bunch of people they consider to be "wanna-be" nuisance racers.


If someone was smart, they'd open up a better facility. The problem is all the politics involved in getting a track set-up.

It really sounds like Fontana wants to host NHRA events and the SLD's was a good way to get the ball rolling. Not to mention grant money to help build the track.

 

Well when we run our nite event, it costs us $1000 for security to stay.

Now as far as building a track, well not anywhere close by. It would need to be a multi use track and that is not going to happen. Noise is a big problem. We can't use the lots next to the rr tracks because of the noise. Amazing that one can hear the stock cars inside and the drags as far as three miles away but you can't hear the autox and we get the most blame for noise.

 

I seriously doubt they dont get paid. These are the same clowns from Pomona, I know they were getting money over there to run the whole street legal racing deal, besides the state funding they were getting there. Pomona chased them out, they ran to Fontana and grabbed some more state money to get a track up and going there. These people are all about money, not friendship.

Someone elsewhere posted a thought about it, saying that they are trying to get more people to pay $100 entry fees a piece for their other racing deal they have there... and I will bet a dollar thats why they run the cheap day like they do.

I've tried to run my TA there 3 times in the past, and all 3 times my car was parked in the parking lot collecting dust. There will not be a 4th attempt, especially with this latest stupidity. Its not worth the effort. I'll drive up to Famoso instead, at least there I know I can run my car with no headaches.