Ballico Airport

The field opened in 1942 as an emergency landing field and training area and is now Turlock Municipal Airport, eight miles east of Turlock. As early as 1957, maybe 1956, members of the Stanislaus-Merced Timing Association sought approval to race on an unused part of what was then Ballico Airport. They got it in mid-1958 but found the surface in bad shape, since it had been used to store almond hulls, rotting melons and other debris. The Turlock city council then approved use of the main runway in September, only to back out in early December 1958. By April 1959 things were worked out, and bi-monthly races began. Elmer Snyder and a couple of others got the program going. Mike Steinberg, who raced cars and motorcycles there, recalled that the shutdown wasn’t much. Competition cars often went off the end into a big plowed field, though as far as he knew nobody was hurt, and it added to the Sunday excitement. A June 25, 1961 race raised money for American Legion Junior Baseball in the Turlock area, and the featured M & M Automotive Special took top eliminator at 145.21 mph. On December 17, 1961, Tom El Venga broke some ribs and was scraped up when an axle snapped and he was thrown from his 1940 coupe. Races seem to have run monthly in 1962. The track held several charity races over the years for a number of causes.