i have some old vallejo speedway 1/4 mile dirt track hardtop black and white photos 1960"s-70"s and vallejo speedway programs and racing wheels magazine. i have seen all the other old modifieds photos on this board and think that people would enjoy these also, maybe even remember some of the cars and drivers, i have no clue on how to do it so if anyone lives in the vallejo-vacaville area that can and would like to post the photos?
Haven't been there for a few years but if I ever make it back to the SF area I would love to help digitize your portfolio. Vallejo Speedway was the best days of my youth. http://vallejospeedwayhardtops.homestead.com/quinn.html R
Here is some footage I found and I put together in tribute to some of the Vallejo Speedway drivers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIE-hgdzYBA&eurl=http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit2
Do any of you remember the old oval track on Sonoma Blvd? I think its about where there was/is a Mervins. Seem to remember the China Barn.
Newspaper clippings. Good crowd of spectators. Old sight of Vallejo Speedway. You can barely make out the oval at 45 degrees. You can see the road leading up to the track. Vallejo Speedway today with houses built over it.
I was there on the first day it opened. The orig. track was about three time larger and you can see the out line to the right toward the strip of houses and the empty field where the Cresent Drive In was . It had dirt wall retainers and ran some sprints and other cars. They did some figure 8 racing which was pretty wild then.
i have a copy of that video. i do not remember where i bought it. larry damitz is still racing, been racing late models and now super stocks he has won a few main events this year at antioch speedway. last year he built a hardtop and won the first time out. the hardtops raced at antioch a few weeks back but he raced his super stock and not the hardtop, heard that the car might be a little to fast for the other cars to keep up with, even though the driver is around 82 years old. my favorite looking hardtop was the 1936 willys sedan that the dudleys built, if i could only find a 1936 willys sedan body i would build a hardtop,
have heard there was a track located on couch st. that was the one referred to as where the china barn was located, the other track i heard was located on the corner of sonoma blvd(hwy29) and hwy 37, where the old a.g.e. store was built, maybe someone else has more info?
Larry still racing!?! Wow. I remember Larry Damitz was racing the year Del Quinn died in back 2001. I believe during that time Steve Mentch retired but was active as an owner. Here's Larry Damitz in '65.
I was at the "Flipperoo" photo race !!! Pee-Wee was my favorite driver, I remember yelling "......go Pee Wee go, go Pee Wee go...." Remember the car with the bee on the back ??? I went to the speedway during the 60s- '71, we used to live in "Vallejo Square" sub-division. I was a student at Solano Jr. High in '70-71. Few of us rode bicycles to the track with a couple of others. After the races we would get a ride with whoever stopped with a pick-up & they dropped us off at Mini Dr.. We were a frequent sight to the racers....
wow........ i went to the track to watch the races and the drive in movies! my favorite hardtop of all time was the 1936 willys built by the dudley brothers from napa. thought i would add that larry damitz has already one another main event at antioch speedway this year 2011.
Hi guys, great site! I grew up watching NASCAR sanctioned hardtops at San Jose Speedway, but one of my co-workers' dad Bill Hammond raced at Vallejo. Unfortunately all of my friend Bob's memorabilia from his dad's racing days was lost in a fire a year ago. Does anyone here have any pictures of Bill's cars that can be scanned and printed? TIA P.S.- I have a Vallejo connection- I was one of the last babies to be born at the Mare Island Naval Hospital in 1950.
I used to attend races at Vallejo Speedway in Vallejo, CA every Saturday night with my Grandpa in the early to mid 1960s. We used to watch the likes of Leroy Geving (my fav) Chet Thompson, Phil "Bang Bang" Pedlar, Larry Dimitz, Julian Castro, Dave Logan, Steve Mench, Gene Dudley, Lee Dudley, Jim Kaiser, Rich Govan, PeeWee Waybright, Paul Proctor, Del Quinn . . . just to name the ones I can off the top of my head. Good times! I believe that No. 11 in the top picture of your post is Phil "Bang Bang" Pedlar. I'm very saddened to see what the former location looks like today. I have lived Colorado now for 30 years. 5 years ago I took some pictures of Lakewood Speedway in Lakewood, CO which closed down in the late 80's. I took a bunch of pictures back then and nothing has changed as of this date . . . I will post some pictures.
In the early 60s I was like 5 or 6 . . . at intermission my gramps used to send me up to Speed Rileys announcing booth with $1 to donate to the "Roll over fund" . . . and I'd get to yak with ole Speed over the mic . . . he always got a kick out of it. I also used to love to go down into the pits after the evenings program and meet the drivers . . . Leroy Geving (R.I.P. 3-31-31 - 5-23-04) was my favorite all 6 years I attended regulary . . . about 1961 thru 1966 . . . my grandpa Walt O'Dell passed away in 1967 and I couldn't find any after him to take me out to the track on Saturday night.
Here is an interesting pictorial of Vallejo Speedway from about 1963 to 1974 . . .about 5 minutes long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=git3uhP4MEk
My favorite old Larry Damitz Super Modified Hardtop from 1965. His wife was my substitute teacher at Mills Elementary one afternoon while he was driving this exact car . . . and I drew italicized "3"s all day, trying to imulate the script on the car . . . man I'll bet she was glad when that day ended . . . I mean I was obnoxious! ha!
Great track, we (kids) raced our flat track motorcycles there between the Trophy Dash and Main event in 1974 a few times. Larry Hall was the track champ and from our town, Sonoma. I later raced against Phil Pedlar at San Jose, Antioch and Petaluma in a Dirt Modified.
Right on Cyclone . . . I'm honored just to be corresponding with someone who has raced against ole Bang-Bang . . . I recall his ole silverish/grayish No. 11 super modified hardtop (can't remember the make/model now, but it was a flat back styled automobile) in the mid 60's by the end of the year was always literally covered with hammer pound outs over the entire body. Then he'd show up the following year with a pristine car and by July it would be all beat up like last years . . . those were some fabulous times out at VS . . . There are homes there now . . . way too bad!
I was in high school in Sonoma (61/65). I worked at Rubkes Chevron station with my buddy Bud Hill. John Rubke raced a hardtop at Vallejo with Jerry "Skinhead" Stockton as his driver. Those were really great times. I got to clean the car before every race.
My most cherished memories of my youth was building race car models. I loved dirt track racing. In the mid 60's I got hooked watching the hardtops race at Vallejo Speedway. I got the idea to build a hardtop model for a guy that raced at Vallejo Speedway. He lived a just a few blocks from my house. Del Quinn, #16, owned a Signal Gas station and kept his car there all the time. I built many a model for him. We became friends fast and in '65 he hired me to work for him at his gas station. As a 15 year old kid I had some great times helping Del work on his race car. Soon he hired me to work at his station. In next year Del built a new race car. I asked if he would let me do the hand lettering on the car. I fell in love with hand lettering so much I started a my sign business at 22. After 44 years I'm still busy lettering and making signs. The burning desire to build model race cars never left me. Last year I sat down and started building a Vallejo Speedway hardtop model again. However, I got derailed and took on the task to host a reunion for my old unit I served with in Vietnam in the Navy. Now I'm anxious to get back to the bench and work on the hardtop model again. Started a Facebook page for fun to show steps of the build. I've always felt one day I would come full circle and be a kid again building models for fun. https://www.facebook.com/VallejoSpeedwayHardtopModels/
Vallejo started off as a 1/2 mile but was shortened to a 1/4. While it was still open you could still see the old abandoned section of track & the dismantled bleachers off tov the East.
phil Pedlar in the '70s when he was racing NARC sprint cars after Vallejo closed. He related that he liked sprintcars b ecause he didn't need to worry anymore about waking up Sunday morning in the Vallejo Jail after a hard night at the speedway(probably a "tall story", but knowing Phil, it could be possible... ) He passed a couple of years ago.
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