Irwindale Raceway

Jack W. Minnock of West Covina built the raceway on leased land southwest of Irwindale Avenue, not quite three miles from the old San Gabe strips. The track was 4,500 feet long and 60 feet wide on seventy acres, with seating for 5,000. Rock quarries lay to the south, and the drag strip land was expected to be needed in about ten years. Neighboring Duarte and Azusa were upset they hadn’t been told about the public hearing and opposed the strip. The track needed good relations with Azusa, its closest water source, and reached a water agreement in mid-October. It opened under AHRA sanction on Sunday, October 31, 1965, with Jim Blake as track manager, Steve Gibbs as race coordinator and Mel Reck announcing. At a race on December 19, 1965, John “Zookeeper” Mulligan won top fuel, Dave Beebe had top speed at 204.50 mph, Steve Carbone had low ET at 7.63, and Bill Scott of San Bernardino set a gas dragster world record of 8.03.

The track hosted the AHRA Winternationals in February 1966, marred when Lefty Mudersbach was killed on a single qualifying pass. Irwindale held several big United Drag Racers Association events in 1966-67. NHRA sanctioned the track in September 1967, and it ran NHRA races from 1971 through 1974. In December 1972 International Raceway Parks, a Seattle company that also owned drag strips in Seattle, Portland and Puyallup, bought Irwindale. Steve Evans, formerly general manager of Lions Drag Strip, became general manager, and Glenn Menard, the previous track manager, stayed on in another role. The two-day Grand Premiere on January 5-6, 1974, invited eight top fuelers from the Cragar Five-Second Club, open only to dragsters that had run under six seconds, including Don Garlits, Don Moody, James Warren, Dan Richins, Larry Dixon, Tommy Ivo and John Stewart. The track closed after the city of Irwindale bought it and turned it over to the Miller Brewing Company. The final race, on October 1, 1977, had a 32-car funny car show and a match race in which Don Garlits beat Shirley Muldowney two straight.