Saugus Speedway Now a California Ghost Track

Our new RR member, Carol Bell brought up memories of her late brother, Steve Colbert racing in the 60s at Saugus Speedway in the Santa Clarita / Van Nuys, California area on Tuesday night's Goat Rodeo..

That track had a storied history, especially when the Pacific Racing Association (PRA) began promoting stock car races. One of the more recent graduates to hit the big time from the now closed Saugus track is Ron Hornaday, Jr. His dad also raced at Saugus.

The 1960s Van Nuys newspaper has several archived stories mentioning Carol's brother and the late award winning motorsports writer, Shav Glick did a 25 year retrospective of Saugus racing on the famed 1/3-mile in the L.A. Times some years back.

Saugus was one of those tracks that was dirt/paved/dirt/paved.

They even ran Figure 8 "Train" racing with 3 cars chained together.

I found this little clip on YouTube. If he hasn't already done so, seems to me that Saugus would make an excellent Ghost Track segment for Bopper's weekly installment. Bet Carol could provide him all sorts of info.

Wow! Brought tears to my eyes. So many Saturday nites, so many good memories. It was truly a unique place and I was struck by the "swap meet" lady saying that they wanted to provide a family friendly environment. I seem to remember that it was always a family friendly environment.

They put together a wonderful book on the early years of Saugus and contacted my brother Steve for pictures and comments. He never thought the project would come to fruition and didn't send anything. If he were still alive I'd whoop him for that, cuz the book is great.

Also, an interesting thing I always heard about Saugus, is that if you set up a car for Saugus you could run it just about anywhere. But set up a car for Irwindale, Orange Show, Bakersfield, etc., and you'd have to change it for other tracks. Don't really know if that's true, but I always heard that.

Saugus Speedway, it's still there, but operates as a flea market

Just stumbled across this little note on a Dukes of Hazzard site:

Season 3 sees the Dukes head for Cedar City Fairgrounds in 'Carnival of Thrills'.

Most of the action in this episode takes place in or around the Hazzard Fair Grounds ('Fair Grounds' was 2 words on the poster). In real life this was filmed at Saugus Speedway on Soledad Canyon Road in Santa Clarita , CA. From what I can find online, this is now used for swap meets. It was also seen in 'Dukes Meet Cale Yarborough' and 'Hazzard Connection'. Here's a more recent picture, or you can explore it yourself on Google Maps.

Gosh, Dave, those stands that would not pass the local government's butt-load test in 1995 are STILL standing! OMG!

Beginning to think they might have mistakenly applied the B.S. test rather than the B.L. test, Bobby.

A miscue of "Staggering" proportions!

They filmed a number of things there including parts of TV shows and major motion pictures. And yes, you can see in the aerial shots how "rickety" the stands were.

I sent a message to Jeff after my "debut" on radio, that while the facility was certainly broken in, there was nothing rickety or flimsy about it. It was maintained very well which is why is lasted so long. And the promoters ran the race programs like a fine watch. I do remember the occasional "disagreements" between drivers and the promoters but they were solved pretty quick and the races proceeded. The programs were well structured and the delays, if there were any were very short. When one race was completed, the cars for the next race were already lined up on access road along the outside of turn two and as the race cars exited the track, the next segment cars entered along the backstretch.

Very much like most Saturday night short tracks were run all over the country.

Ahhhhhh..........the plot thickens! A dadgum conspiracy, if there's ever been one! Was Saugus a NASCAR-sanctioned track? Really, don't matter if it was or not, the Daytona brain-trust knew, in 1995, that Irwindale,, the taj mahal of all Saturday night tracks (that's now a GHOST TRACK too) was on the drawing board and on the way to fame and riches and more riches. That pesky little track with the rickety bleacher has got to go...........as the Rev. Billy Ray Collins would say........."YOUdo the math......."

Yes, Bobby, Saugus was a NASCAR sanctioned track which is why I had to apply for a license with them when I pitched in on my brother's car. I had no problem with them, tho. It was PRA who got skittish about issuing me a license.

And if I'm remembering correctly, there was an "Irwindale" track before the new and improved one was built. They had drag racing for years and I believe there was a small oval that the guys raced on some times as well. I might be wrong about this, but I don't think so. Will check further.

This Google search link will take you to some archived Saugus newspaper articles mentioning carol's brother, Steve Colbert.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Saugus+speedway+steve+colbert+van+nuys+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Wasn't able to pull that up, Dave. But remember I am challenged ! But I was able to pull this up on Ancestry.com.

And I just found out my little blue dog Doc who is showing in agility out in Reno may be on TV tonite. Yippee!

Carol, sorry you can't get the google link to work.

That's OK, Dave. Everything, and I mean everything is on Ancestry.com. First time that site has really come in handy for me.

But you have no idea how much I appreciate your research on this. I spoke to my sister-in-law today. She'll be in Carson City when I get there and she's going to search through some stuff out there and hopefully we'll get more cool pictures. She has a lot in Yuma, but she travels around the country with her "significant other" now and won't be back there for awhile. I just have so few, but there'll will be more.

Carol, it may be because the link contains my fireefox browser name. I don't know.

Here are the search terms I used on my Google search that returned archived articles. Try just using them in a Google search and see if the results are better:

Saugus Speedway Steve Colbert Van Nuys

Come go back with me to Saugus Speedway for a nite of Racing-- A 100 lap feature and all the qualifying too. Set back close your Eyes and Listen to this Radio Broadcast from the Ghost track called SAUGUS SPEEDWAY . Tissues are allowed

click here

Rummaging in the attic last night brought forth a June 1969 issue of Stock Car Racing Magazine. The clip below was written by Steve Smith in his "West Coast News" column:

And... Carol, you might possibly be able to answer this question posed by Sheila here in 2008:

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/forum/topics/1981311:Topic:71092

I know Jimmy raced into the '80s and is in the West Coast HOF. I have no idea what he ended up doing, but I'm sure it was a financial thing and the fact the NASCAR went so huge in the '70's. If I hear anything or stumble across any further info, I'll sure post it. He was tho, one of the West Coast guys who went the furthest.