HomeCar CultureSaturday Matinee: Lions Drag Strip 1960

Saturday Matinee: Lions Drag Strip 1960

The legendary Lions Drag Strip now only exists in our collective memories and films like this

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Lions Drag Strip closed in 1972. Yet it remains one of the most heralded strips of pavement to a host of former attendees and those who only dreamed of going there.

Like many famed race tracks, burgeoning residential and commercial made the strip more valuable to the business of shipping than racing. The plot of land is now a storage facility for ocean-going shipping containers.

This is a vintage photo, taken of The Hawaiian Dodge Charger Funn Car by Howard Koby in 1972 at Lions Drag Strip

However, this 8mm film will take the viewer back to an age where California was the “home of speed” with every type of tuning shop, churing out cam shafts, heads, pistons and all types of go fast parts — race proven at this lone gone strip of pavement.

Sadly, the only noise is the projector rolling the images onto a screen. But one can only imagine the roar of these incredible dragsters in this now 60-year-old footage.

Too bad they didn’t have iPhones then, eh?

Tom Stahler
Tom Stahler
Tom Stahler is the Managing Editor of the ClassicCars.com Journal. Tom has a lifelong love of cars and motor racing – beginning with the 1968 USRRC race at Road America, in a stroller, at eight months of age. His words, photos and broadcasts can can be found on a myriad of media. He has won the Motor Press Guild’s Dean Batchelor Award and a Gold Medal in the International Automotive Media Awards.

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