Sun, 05 Nov 2017, 18:35 PM Dragstrips- Fremont and Sears Point

By Steve Reyes Photo copyright 2017 Steve Reyes

Since I started my photo journey in the sport of drag racing over fifty years ago, I have ventured all around the world to at least 109 different drag strips. I worked at short, long, smooth, bumpy, wide, narrow, easy to find, and hard to find race tracks. However, I must admit to having an affinity to my home track, Fremont Drag Strip in Fremont, California. This was the first drag strip I ever set foot on when I was only fifteen years old. The race track was liked by the racers but the dusty pit area and poor bathrooms were not liked so much. A change in management mid-1965 ushered in some improvements in the form of partial paving in the pit area, better bathrooms and improved food. Many spectators and racers rejoiced over the improvements and Fremont became "the jewel" of drag strips in Northern California until 1969.

In 1969, Sears Point International Raceway opened up, in the wine country region of Sonoma, California. Sears Point featured a road course and drag strip with garages and a state of the art timing tower. This was truly a first-class racing facility for NorCal fans and racers. Enjoy the following glimpses of these race tracks in the following pictures.

If you wish to purchase prints of the photos below or any others, they may be obtained by contacting us at breyes@reyesontour.com. Other photos for purchase may be viewed by following the links at www.reyesontour.com.

Located in the Fremont, California, farmlands, Fremont drag strip had a lot of open area.
Inside Fremont's tower was the announcer, the late Ray Francisco on the mic. The main
source of food at the Fremont pit side was this hollowed out bus converted into a hamburger
making machine. The food was very good for race track food.

In 1968, Jungle Jim was doing one of his turnaround burnouts toward the starting line.
If you look behind the Nova, you can see the light structures that allowed night racing
on Saturday nights during the summer. Also, you will notice there are no guard rails to
prevent any out of control race cars from hitting one of those light structures. Now, if you
look over Gene Snow's Charger you will see the back of a twin-screened drive-in theatre.
That screen was added to the original one screen drive-in in 1970. The screen in the Brewer
and Mull photo was there in 1967. What made it very interesting was that the screen facing
the race rack would show soft porn movies late on Saturday nights much to the delight
or dismay of the spectators.

From the top of Fremont's tower in 1968, we could count the cows in Farmer Brown's field.
Behind Fremont's sign boards was the road leading to the spectator parking/entrance.
Oh, if you continued down the road it led to the glider airport that operated next to the race track.
Yes, a few gliders almost landed on the race track during the racing action. You notice in the
Pure Hell photo, Mike Mahay, the flagman for Fremont. In 1966, Fremont shared a Xmas tree
starting system with other drag strips in Northern California. On off weekends, Mahay flagged the races.
The last photo shows Tommy Walsh in the Hay, Haslum and Walsh Wailer AA/FD in front of the old plain
white and black lettered tower. They painted and expanded the tower in 1966.

Don Garlits came from Florida to claim the first ever top fuel eliminator trophy
at the Sears Point, California, opener. Sears Point was wide open with a road course
and garages on the grounds. The photo of Gene Gilmore losing his fuel tank was from
the hill that allowed a great view and nice photo area. As you can tell there was a lot
of space to race and a very cool tower.

Sears Point featured guard rails down track as this F/Stock 'Cuda found out at the opener.
A cross-over bridge allowed for photos like this one of George Tuers driving the Wax Shop
wheel standing truck. Oh yeah, Tuers crashed on this run, he ran off the end of the track
with the front end still in the air.