Ascot Park: 1957-1990
Words by Mark Gammo | Photography by Rob Pryce
Archive photos courtesy Ascot
What do Chuck Norris, Ronald Reagan and Steve McQueen have in common? The reverential yet forgotten Southern California racetrack known as Ascot. A nationally known institution, Ascot Park can be spoken in the same breath as Indianapolis and the Daytona Speedway as one of the most famous oval tracks in history. Ascot cultivated more rising car and motorcycle racer careers than most, and even launched Evel Knievel’s daredevil ploys on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. This half-mile track drew out thousands of race crowds, five days a week amid a hunger for speed, Americana and spectacle you cannot replicate.
The story has been told and retold many times over about the fastest racetrack in the country. It’s been said that anyone who wanted to get recognition and prove race credibility needed to win at Ascot. Celebrities and blue-collar fans alike would come see the races, sitting elbow to elbow in a packed house. There were no VIP sections or box seats for the elite; all that was available were the stretched wooden bleachers that wrapped around the track.
You’re probably scratching your head, or paused to Google, “Where is Ascot now?” The inconvenient truth to the matter is that this ghost track has been dead for the last thirty years. But yet, it still haunts us with those short-lived memories from the past.
Today we have the unique opportunity to enter the facility and get a glimpse into a page of forgotten history. I was warned by a colleague before entering this space that the things I was about to see have never been open to the public. The Agajanian family who owns the racetrack have always cherished their privacy. With that said, we enter the Temple of Speed with discretion and elation as if we’re discovering an Egyptian tomb for the very first time.
As the door to the building cracks open, I am greeted by Chris Agajanian himself, along with his very alluring smile and kind eyes. A first gaze around his space reveals the endless photos, trophies and memorabilia that fight to fit on the walls of this 6,000-square-foot, two-story garage-office-showroom.
At a brushing glance it’s difficult to focus on just one photo or just one memento. But soon the faces start to emerge that I quickly recognize. Tucked in among the frames is Steve McQueen photographed with James Garner in an intimate moment that is left to hold space of the frame it’s hung up on. Then just to the right of it, a young Gene Romero and Kenny Roberts soaked in mud, dirt and all. They are grinning ear to ear, and next to them a tall, handsomely dressed man in a cowboy hat hunching over whispering into their ears as if the joke was on us. From Sylvester Stallone to the Beatles’ George Harrison, an endless array of photographs decorate these walls. One continuous figure throughout these portraits was the man in a cream-colored suit and his Stetson cowboy hat. This man was Chris’s father, J.C. Agajanian.
As we continued our tour of the facility we turned to Chris to council us on what his family left to preserve the heavy history of a forgotten legacy. We continue walking the space as he randomly points out photographs, jerseys, bikes and trophies, and follows each one with an interesting story behind it. And yes, he also has an Indy race car in the garage, along with the pace car for that year, to boot. Walking through the halls, stumbling past tattered old race suits and vintage motorcycles held together by rusted nuts and bolts, I could feel the motorsport souls speaking through ephemeral voices from the track. I knew right then that I was not writing a story just about a racetrack, but the story of a family influential in commercializing the Southern California race culture, if not the whole country.
Chris reminiscently tells me, “Everyone came down to the track and wanted to experience it firsthand. It was about Southern California, and it’s Hollywood. Celebs would come, and we didn’t have VIP sections; so they’d sit in the grandstands or get into the pits with everyone else. SoCal just became a hotbed for racing. There were builders that built race cars for the Indy 500, hot rods, and innovative designers like Caroll Shelby that fed the brewing generations of young kids that all they’d want to do is go fast. Then there was the Friday night motorcycle flat track series. During those years from 1957 all the way through, was just the most phenomenal time. The place would be sold out – it was like a national championship every Friday night, because all of the great riders would come out and race on this amazing dirt track. With all these Harleys, BSA Gold Stars, Triumphs, Ariels, Velocettes, and all these different motorcycles. These guys were daredevils, man; there wasn’t a hay bale to be seen and a couple of bobbles or high sides and that was the end of your career.”
Ascot was known as the fastest half-mile dirt oval in the States. That dirt was a special kind of dirt. The track became so sticky and tacky it would pull the shoe right off your foot. Riders would say it was 90 percent traction all the way around the track, and to be able to hold that throttle wide open and blip it no matter where you were – you could go wide to the top and race full speed.
Aside from being the fastest, that track was also known as the busiest racetrack in the country because there were five nights of racing a week. The dirt track hosted all kinds of races during its 33-year existence. Sprint cars, midget cars, stock cars, motorcycles, dune buggies, ATVs, motocross, Go Karts, figure 8 races, destruction derbies and many more were held there. From 1957 until 1990 the Ascot Park resided in Gardena, CA. Once called the berry-growing capital of Southern California, Ascot race track was cultivated out of a local motorcycle club and thus started a flat-track revolution.
When asking Chris if he thinks Ascot Park could ever be resurrected from its ashes and gain a new crowd of spectators, he told me, “Of course it could! The reality is, environmentally there’s a lot of challenges that we’d have to face. Especially with light pollution and noise pollution, which I think surrounding neighborhoods would throw a fit. I still get people nowadays who tell me they would hear the races roaring all the way from their house as far as Manhattan Beach. Now think about that in this day and age. It was a different era back then, and people really enjoyed it. It was more like gladiators back then; the races were real, and the racers put it on the line every time.”
