Brotherhood Raceway Park (Terminal Island)

Terminal Island is a man-made, sand-filled island in Long Beach Harbor. A civilian airfield, Allen Field, was built there in 1927, and the military soon took it over, naming it Naval Air Base San Pedro/Reeves Field in 1936. With help from Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, “Big Willie” Robinson (1942-2012), an imposing 6-foot-6, 300-pound man, set up legal drag racing on the old airfield. His Brotherhood of Street Racers paid $1,000 a month for the field and charged $5 admission. According to racer John Snapp, who ran his Camaro there, it opened in December 1976 and hosted drag racing until 1984. Disputes with the property owner meant it never had a regular schedule and was limited to a set number of race dates a year. There was no racing from 1984 to 1993. It became a full-time track in late 1993 and closed for good in April 1995. Over the years it ran as a quarter-mile, 1,000-foot and eighth-mile track, and it closed as a quarter-mile. Alfred Hernandez, who went as a kid, remembered it as the best drag racing atmosphere ever: open late, with ATVs, motorcycles, foot races, lawn mowers and anything else that moved forward, and hot dogs bet between runs. He said it was like something out of a movie.