Comments on Tracks - Carrell Speedway

Carrell Speedway was about two miles east of where we lived on 182nd Street, Torrance, California. It seems to me 182nd dead-ended at whatever street the track was on, maybe Normandie or one just east of that. The track itself may have been in the narrow strip of incorporated land that connected Los Angeles proper with San Pedro, which although it had a separate identity was actually part of L.A. To the eternal shame of the society, the Speedway grounds were carved out on the edge of what was known both in oral tradition and on maps, as "N-word Slough." The carving out was not embarrassing; the naming was.

It was not a long bike ride to the track and sometimes I would go over there just to cruise around the dirt parking lot. Most of the dozen or so occasions I went there to see racing, it was with my friend, Mike Houston. His father was a fan, and his uncle Walt owned one of the first Porsches in Southern California, a white Speedster. I remember he came to show it off and give Mike a ride, but I didn't get one. What a disappointment.

My ride to the Pomona Fairground midget races was also with Mike and his dad, John, a college mathematics and astronomy instructor. In that time of early post-war recovery he drove a 1928 Model A Ford, as a matter of principle, I believe. It worked good, was extremely easy to repair, and was both economical transport and a social statement. You have to remember there was but one freeway at that time. Nowadays you could do it, but it would be a different kind of statement. That tipsy little speed-o-meter seldom showed more than 40-45 mph. You can't even go that slow on surface streets, now.

One of the most vivid mental movies I can run about this place is waiting in line to drive into the Carrell parking lot and seeing a boy on a bicycle. Not just any bicycle, and I presume not just any boy: the bike was modified and built up so the boy's feet on the pedals were just at roof level of the cars of the day. He'd pedal along a while, long chain swinging in some kind of harmonic, then stop and put a foot on a car roof while he waited for an opening in traffic.

Lighting at the Speedway wasn't that great. I have never had very good night vision, and was often dependent on others' comments to understand what was going on. I saw midgets and "big cars" (sprint cars, I reckon), and sports cars. Names I remember are: Johnny Parsons (who signed and handed out glossy black and white 8x10s the year he won Indy); Troy Ruttman, just a kid; Parnelli Jones, even younger, I think; J.C. Agajanian, the pig farmer. I'm certain that Phil Hill was one of the sports car racers I saw, but I didn't remember his name.

The midgets really threw the dirt up as they slid into Turn One. It would be inches deep in front of the first row of seats in the grandstand. No one had to tell me why there was a swath of empty seats in what seemed to be a prime viewing area, once practice started and the landscape started moving into the spectator area.

A remarkable thing about sports car races on the dirt oval (other than the way they bucked and snorted in the ruts) was how hard it was for me to discriminate among the Alfa Romeos, MGTCs, and Singers. All red, all strange. Not so strange as the Messerschmidt bubble cars that put on a demonstration "race." Just a couple of the seven or eight that started finished the first lap without tipping over.

Bulletin: I just realized that these race viewings at Carrell Speedway were all before I first wore eyeglasses! No wonder I couldn't appreciate what was happening. I didn't know there was crisp vision beyond fifteen feet until after this time!

When the Speedway finally fell to the developer's wide blade, one of the improvements to the area was the evolution of 174th Street into "Artesia Boulevard." I haven't kept very good track of it, but it seems to me it may have become a freeway with a number different from 174 but not nearly so evocative for me.

During the era we lived on 182nd, the only things between us and 174th were the celery fields and the brick-making business with its gas-fired self-ovens that roared 24 hours a day. Beyond the celery fields it was bean fields and a few homes. In the evening you could stand on our porch and see red light run up and down the 60-foot neon spire on the Academy Theater, Manchester just west of Crenshaw (We went there for a premiere one night and saw a very unhappy Vera Hruba Ralston make a bee-line for her limo and squeal away. Really).

For a brief time 174th-Artesia ran right over the entrance of turn three and the exit of turn four. From the eastbound lanes of four-lane 174tesia you could look south into the infield and see stagnant water puddled there among the half-buried-tire track markers. I believe the only time I would have had occasion to travel that road was the summer of 1961, when I was staying with friends who lived just off Crenshaw in north Torrance while I attended a short summer school session at USC, and did a blueprint job on the MGTD engine.

So, you ask me what was the outstanding characteristic of Carrell Speedway? As a pre-teen boy, it had to be the hot dogs. Yup. They were unique and delicious: cooked in coconut oil, they had genuine sausage skin that popped when you bit into them, and with the dark yellow mustard served there they remain at the pinnacle of hot dogness. I've yet to find a better one, anywhere at any price. They were a quarter. Heaven for a quarter. Never see it again.

To see photos of Action and Drama at Carrell Speedway in the 1950s, check out the photos by Dave Smith: FotoTime Album. Dave is Bill Bean's uncle, and was JC Agajanian's photographer for some years.

  RACING Site Map                        WHOLE Site Map                 PERSONAL Site Map