Due to the lack of incoming business for me, I have been looking for new projects to occupy my downtime. As luck would have it, a friend came in to my shop the other day to BS, and he saw my "Roth hot rods" book sitting on the desk. We started talking about hot rods and he mentioned growing up in Southern California back in the 1960's, and Saturday showed up with his dad's scrapbook of old photos. Turns out his dad was a part time journalist who covered the drags back in the late '50's, and had a TON of amazing photos taken at Two Morrow dragstrip in Colton. The Mooneyham & Johnson 554 coupe ( flathead powered on fuel ), the Bean Bandits, Cook & Bedwell, Tom McEwen, Akton (Ak) Miller, and on and on. Even a photo of Tommy Ivo in a Buick-powered "rat rod" he built as a joke, (according to the research I've done). Sooo, the plan is to do a series of paintings based on the photos. The problem is, the pics all look staged, unless they just ran single passes back then...Anyone have more info on how the strips were run back in the late '50s? Did they run eliminations? or were they just flagged off individually in an attempt to set a record, like they do at Bonneville? Any help would be greatly appreciated!! P.S. I have promised not to post any of the pics on the internet, so please don't ask !! Todd
Every time I went to Colton they had side by side races, class and top eliminator winners, just like any other strip. Was a very cool place. Just about as casual as they come.
All strips either ran two or four abreast...Lions even staged races with "Lemans" style starts for a short while...awhile later, they toyed with the idea to have 3/16th mile races, but never did.
In the 1950s most of the strips allowed single runs in the morning by the Hot cars. The runs were made to tune up the car. The eliminations were held in the afternoon. There should be many photos of cars making those single runs. When I ran my fuel coupe back then I made a first run using alcohol to check that the engine was running OK. The next run would be made using some nitro. Don www.montgomeryhotrodbooks.com
I remember Colton as the outlaw strip. My first race on a strip was there. Only place I could get by without a scatter shield. My first Olds powered Ford. Good days! Ron
It was late 50,s and Colton was the first dragstrip I attended. I saw a lot of big name cars run there, first time I ever heard and seen a GMC run! was a primered duece coupe, [was that you Don?] Saw 'Mr Flathead' John Bradley, put Cook and Bedwell Chrysler dragster on the trailor, also saw big John Mazmanian, the Speed Sport roadster, Gene Adams 50 Olds, Ivo,s T, McMullens Roadster,[also Wild Rose'] vette. Looking back it was the best of times for drags, you saw all kinds of different cars, and machines, with everthing from V8 and outboard powered motorcycles, Fuel dragsters, stockers, flatheads 4,s, inliners, you name it. It was really something to see for a fng at the time.
What year did Colton close? I would have thought by 60 when Fontana started but i've seen mid 60's pictures from there.
It was closed by 1966 when I moved into Rialto. I lived two short blocks from the "Sandhills" and just over them about a 1/2 mile was the closed down strip. Seems like the airplane drivers took it over, not sure if its still an airport. Probably not with all the houses and building that went on in the area.
I have a scta timming tag, and trophy of my grandfather's. The Scta tag has car number 31 in the y class owned by freudiger-fox & Wolf. Speed of 123.11 at Morrow 1/4 date 1/22/56. The freudiger team continues running land speed to this day. My grandfather still remembers these names and the cars.
I was there the night Creighton Hunter, took out the lights in his crazy, 'piece of pie' dragster. It was shaped like a slice of pie, and had a wierd 'super holeshot' setup, with the rear end jacked up on some caster wheels, and the motor sitting sideways, connected to a direct chain drive straight axle. It was push started by dropping the jacked up rear end on the track then with a handle arrangement he jacked it up so the wheels were clear of the track, lined up revved it way up, and with wheels spinning dropped it down on the track when he got the flag. Craziest thing I ever saw, it was really fast, flathead powered, but got outta control and crashed,
This is a cool thread lets see some of those pics My ol man was raised in Fontana and he tells me all the time about him and his buddies running around there.
yeah, all of us who grew up around here did...Hot Rod Magazine had their big meet there, but on the quarter mile...the half mile drags were unique but kind of a yawner. Most all of the races were decided on by the quarter mile mark.
I ran the SCTA's 1/2 mile drags from '61 through '64. In this shot I'm approaching the lights at 144mph. I can guarantee you, for the drivers, these runs were no "yawners"! Some of the best rides I ever had in that car were at the Riverside 1/2 mile. Not all races were "decided" by the 1/4 mile mark. In '62 I raced Burke Le Sage, who was driving Don Alderson's A class highboy. They were running a blown 354 Hemi with a La Salle 2 speed, their basic lakes set up, but with a lower gear in the QC. With a 4 speed, my car was quick, but their's had a ton of top end. Ours was the last race of the day, for "Top Eliminator". Tim "Weed" Krausaur was the flag starter. As soon as Tim started to lift the flag, I was gone. Got it in 4th just past the 1/4 mile, and thought I had it made. The big Hemi was nowhere around. Then, as I approached the lights, I heard it coming. Just as we entered the traps, I caught sight of his front tire to my left. I was running 140 and Burke was running 185. I just nipped him at the ET light and he passed the final speed trap light ahead of me. 45mph dosen't sound like much, but when a barn door roadster is blowing by you at 185, the draft makes for some white knuckles! To the few that were faithful followers and competitiors at the Riverside 1/2 mile, it was, indeed, exciting.
Couple clarifications here . . . As Dean points out, the SCTA ran their cars on the 1/2-mile. Most all were lakes cars, that's why two roadsters ended up in eliminations. "Real" dragsters seldom ran at the SCTA meets, I'm, told. They were tune-up meets when the lakes were not runable. Colton was not an "outlaw" strip, but cardboard scattershields and roll bars made an appearance or two. Inspection in those days consisted of mainly seeing if you'd put your number on. And from what I understand, NHRA has nowhere near the scrutiny that SCTA has now for cars entering a meet. The SCTA timed the first couple of Colton meets in 1954. And in later years ran a few meets with their cars there and timed them themselves. The strip is long gone. Pat Ganahl shot a picture of my roadster on what was left in 1974(?), but I can't find any pavement anymore. The picture was later printed in Street Rodder with the car burning out thru the weeds popping out of what was left of the pavement. Someone else wrote the story after Pat left the magazine, and the location was not mentioned. On another note, Don Garlits was at Colton the week before the Bakersfield meet. They were tuning Setto Postonian's dragster to run with a blower. Colton ran "hot cars" in the morning to get ETs to use when setting the elimination fields. There was not dual lanes, so running them singlely gave a truer ET. The first meets had no ETs at all -- only MPH clocks which could be activated in some situations by both cars. Stan Back
My first trip to the drags in 1957 was to Colton (Morrow Field) Colton wasn't an outlaw track it was a Drag News Standard 1320 sanctioned track. I ran our club's (The Contenders) 29 Tudor Sedan Fuel Flathead there in 1958. Redlands Boy
Pete Robinson had the same setup on his Belly Button Tinker Toy. Ran it at Lions until Pappy Hart told him "No More"
Yes, they ran 1/2 mile drags at Riverside, mostly coupes, roadsters and sedans that ran at El Mirage, very few dragsters
I remember both Colton and Riverside. I ran at both tracks and had a ball. The old airstrips in Southern California were well used. We even went down in the winter to Holtville, CA and ran down there. SCTA setup the Chrondek system and we'd enjoy good sun and warm days when the coast was cold and rainy. We also ran at the San Diego area Paradise Mesa and a place north of NAS Miramar called Hourglass Field. The Riverside 1/8. 1/4 and 1/2 Drags were quite an experience for me. All reqiured a completely different setup if you wanted a Trophy plus some really innovative competitors too. Great memories and thanks for bringing them back. Oh, for the old days!
I ran Colton a few times. Sometimes the SCTA Road Runners would stop by on the way back from a Lakes meet. We'd get there with time to make just one run before eliminations. In the late '50s/early '60s there were not many car running at El Mirage. You could make 2 runs and be on your way home before lunch. On days with a tail wind (El Mirage Horsepower) I've made 6-7 runs.
I borrowed my mom's '56 Ford wagon to tow the Gratz/Walker AG/dragster to Colton from Vegas. This was in '57-'58.Geez all the "Big Guys" were there, Cyr and Hopper, Todd Rawleigh dual blown Olds dragster and many more. I do remember Gratz leaving shop rags in the two center 97's by mistake and ran so fat on a warm up pass that it looked like a diesel. Seemed to me there was a big dirt hill at the end of the strip.Neat place though.
The half mile at Riverside was fun! A mix of cars not normally seen at the drag-strip. One time Fred Larsen blew the gear box off the back of his quick change. V8 QCs were not strong enough for a Blown Chrysler and Slicks. Amazing that no-one was injured from the two QC gears bouncing off the ground, From time to time a real drag car would show-up. Larsen raced a typical (for the time) jacked-up Gas Roadster. The drag car got to the quarter marker first, but Fred passed him at the first E.T. light. I drove the Bell & Embrey C/Str, Marvin Miller's gas roadster, Bill Smith's 383 Dodge and Val Thompson's 427 Cougar. The most interesting ride was my '64 220 HP El Camino with a 3.08 rear end and a Rock-Crusher trans. Combining the M22's 2.20 first gear with a 3.08 didn't make for good acceleration. So I got two 13" Corvan wheels and mounted some sticky 13" road racing tires. The problem with these small diameter tire was they had no fly-wheel-effect -- you could light the tires shifting into high 8-0.
Myself and my best buddy ran at colton thru the 50's. We had a 29 Ford roadster, and ran in X/R, and later in X/OG. We ran a 4 port Crager OHV converted Model B - 4 banger. My daily driver was a 28 Ford sport coupe with a Fargo 4 port model B. I have many good memories of that old strip, and some of the shade tree cars that ran there. It was a sad day when drag racing turned big bucks.
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