History Fremont Drag Strip / Boat Drags: Circa 1961 PICS!!!

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Very cool! Thanks for sharing.

 

Damn. Blown, injected, hemis.....burning slicks down the strip.......wild altereds spitting and sputtering, and an Allison aircraft engine in a boat!!!! I was born too late, me thinks.

 

thanks youse guys.....really cool Fremont stuff.....and the boat drags - were they on the Sac river?

 

Great pics! Thanks

 

Nope ... Fremont is about 70 miles southwest from the "mouth" of the Sacramento River (i.e., where it empties into Suisun Bay).

The Fremont Drag Strip & Marine Stadium was located near the southeast edge of the San Francisco Bay ... and built on swampy farmland (i.e., wetlands with several sloughs and a creek just a few hundred yards away). The Fremont Marine Stadium was actually a 4' deep man-made pond ... filled with brackish water pumped from nearby Coyote Creek and/or the Bay.

 

Wow! My friend/neighbor Charlie Cass told me that they used to race drag boats there. He helped cut the circle track in back in the 70's (I think it was the 70's)... he said they kept digging up plastic. Seems they lined the track with plastic! I have asked many people over the years, and only a few had ever heard about drag boat races at Fremont. ust have been short lived.
Sam

 

Oh... and that short flathead dragster... I think it might be Darry Capps' dragster... my buddy Tim's CRAGAR four banger was in it in the early 60's...
Sam

 

wowie,thank you for posting.I bet that "Purple People Eater" sounded awesome at full noise on the water

 

awesome pics!

 

about that time, my friend had a 34 coupe /Chrysler, made a run and we were stopped on the return strip. I was just putting balls in the exhaust when a flatbottom came thru and lost his steering, it slid up on the grass and stopped about 30 feet from me!!

 

What an incredible collection of pictures, thanks for posting them. I know where the dragstrip was, but where was the lake where they raced drag boats?

I can't idenfity most of the cars, the Fiat competition coupe was Sumner, Bert, and Mews (though other partners came and went)...anyone know whose fuel dragster went for a spin on the top end?

THANKS FOR POSTING!

 

very cool. I don't think I have ever seen the boat races in Fremont.

 

Think I just saw this boat at long beach Sprint Boat Nationals . Or a boat just like with those Zoome Pipes

 

Brings back good memories. I ran in the first boat drags they had there. I had a Glen L boat that I built that had a 331 hemi. The Allison powered boat was owned by Smitty Weeks from Fresno and was a Belmont hull. It did sound great at the drags and even better at Clear Lake when he could stay on it for a long time!! The story I heard about the closing of the lake was that it leaked because of gophers or some other rodent's activities.

 

The Drag Boat pond ran right alongside the car drag strip, with the car pits and return road between them. I think it was only about 4 feet deep.

 

Wow, what a surprise. I raced some at Fremont in '68-'69. never heard about any boat drags. Musta shut down mid 60s?

 

Outstanding set of pictures. Thanks for posting.

 

The deck on that #35 is absolutely beautiful! Can't tell the make, maybe a Belmont, Miller or a Sanger but that little bubble predates the famous Sanger bubble deck by about 10 years, assuming that these pics were shot around 1960. I see that blonde leaning on a '59 El Camino and there's a '60 galaxie across the water in another shot.
Thanks for sharing.

 

@flyin-t - As the title of this thread indicates, these photographs were taken sometime in 1961.

 

This is so rad! Thanks for sharing


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Very cool! My dad raced Fremont in 1961. Will have to show him these pics.


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These Drag Boat guys are some of the bravest folk in motorsports... when things go wrong under power, they usually go VERY wrong. Hats off to those brave souls

 

Having only started to go to Fremont/Baylands in the late '70's / early '80's, I would never have imagined that there had been a lake and boat racing there. Awesome shots and history! Was there on the last day it was open, used to have a chunk of rubber from the track.
They had the best waffle fries there.

 

In the mid 60's I used to help tune Vern Amaral's boat "Flower Power" Blownfuel Chrysler in a Hondo Flatbottom. He flipped several times and broke his arm often. Dr told him "One more time and we cut your arm off".