Hello, For the time we grew up in the Westside of Long Beach, we went all over for sports games and to visit our friends at their homes. Sometimes, our sports fields were inside of those complexes. The ones in the old photo with the red interior old car, were uniform in construction and were evenly spaced. In all of my old 16mm color movies, way in the background from the starting line to about half way were those similar built apartment housing tracts. The ones near Lion's Dragstrip were mostly responsible for the constant noise complaints and those were quite some distance away from the actual drag strip. The "always blowing wind pattern, West winds" were the sound carrying element. Not only were the actual drag racing sounds heard all over the whole Westside of Long Beach, but when the winds blew East, that accentuated the sound, hitting all of the notes and right into the living rooms of the surrounding community. We thought it as a good thing, music to our ears and we were 1.5 miles east. Even on Signal Hill and Bixby Knolls about 5 miles away, it was still floating in the air and it was still a good sound to enjoy the afternoon, if we were not at Lion's Dragstrip. Later, as the only thing left were the fuel dragsters and funny cars prior to closing... it became louder yet. When we walked between those homes and crossed the farmer’s plowed and unplowed fields, we ended up at the edge of Lion’s Dragstrip return road back to the pits and tower where one got his/her timing slip. But, the security folks were prevalent around the tower and pits. We always started our later walks from our junior high school baseball field which placed us about half to 3/4 to the end of the timing lights. Now, no one was patrolling the fenceless entry area. But, as soon as we stepped onto the track, somehow a patrol car pulled up and shooed us away. multiple rows of apartment houses in the far background No, they could not chase us on the farmer’s field. That was private property. They could yell at us and stay there until we gave up and walked back across the field to our starting spot. Or just kept walking past the end of the dragstrip and end up at our old Craftsman house on the last street near the exit. Jnaki It was an interesting place and I am sure those massive letters and phone calls, along with others living along the railroad tracks were responsible for the massive noise complaint that was the key element for the final closure of the drag strip. YRMV
The Jalopy Journal
