NHRA Winternationals
| "Pomona Raceway" | |
|---|---|
Auto Club Raceway, 2008
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| Location | Pomona, California |
| Time zone | UMT -0800 |
| Coordinates | 34°05′42.32″N 117°46′11.15″W / 34.0950889°N 117.7697639°WCoordinates: 34°05′42.32″N 117°46′11.15″W / 34.0950889°N 117.7697639°W |
| Capacity | 40,000 |
| Owner | NHRA |
| Operator | NHRA |
| Opened | 1951 |
| Former names |
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| Major events |
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| Drag Strip | |
| Surface | Concrete |
| Length | 0.25 mi (0.402 km) |
Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, also known as Pomona Raceway, is a racing facility located in Pomona, California that features a quarter-mile dragstrip. Since its opening in 1961, the dragstrip has hosted the NHRA's Winternationals event – the traditional season opener – and since 1984, the season's last race, the NHRA Finals. These two events have contributed to its becoming perhaps one of the most famous dragstrips in North America. The facility has a seating capacity of 40,000 spectators, and it is one of the few dragstrips in the USA that is operated directly by the NHRA. This dragstrip has also gone by the nickname of The Fairplex, in reference to its location at the Fairplex, formerly called the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds.
In 1952 a car club known as the "Choppers of Pomona" aided by a young police officer, Sergeant Bud Coons, advocated that a safe place should be provided for local area drag racers. Coons, along with fellow hot rod enthusiast, Pomona Police Chief Ralph Parker, and the city government of Pomona asked to lease the parking lot of the LA County Fairgrounds. Coons and Parker were instrumental in convincing the county to allow the use of the fairgrounds for the race by citing statistics that indicated deaths among kids declined sharply when given a place to race that was supervised. The county finally agreed, as long as the hot rodders would provide their own insurance, which they were able to do with gate receipts.
At the time the county made the agreement, the parking lot was nothing but a gravel lot. The coalition of hot rodders, police and community leaders raised funds through donations and paved the lot. This was the birth of the dragstrip in Pomona.
Though it was not considered a national event by today's standards, the very first NHRA event, the Southern California Championships, was held at this drag strip on an April weekend in 1953. On Saturday attendance was at two or three thousand and attendance was reported to be at 15,000 on Sunday. Compared to the 4.5 second numbers the pros are putting on the board presently, the best ET of that day was a respectable 10.93.
In 1961, NHRA held its first ever Winternationals at the Pomona Raceway. It became NHRA's second national event. The first NHRA national event was the U.S. Nationals, which was nicknamed the "Big-Go". Thus, the Winternationals got nicknamed the "Big-Go West". It has remained at this location ever since. For many years, this event was sponsored by Chief Auto Parts and later its successor AutoZone, but later was sponsored by CSK Automotive, and now its current successor, O'Reilly Auto Parts.
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