Comments on: Remembering A Labor Day Tradition

By: Cliff Day

Cliff Day — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 03:12:43 +0000

I was a young boy scout parading with American flag during opening ceremony a the inaugural California 500 in 1970. A few years later my buddies & I would drag race in the parking lot where the Ontario Mills Mall now stands.

Today I am the Controller for the Ontario Airport Hilton which was built in what was nice turn 4 at OMS.

By: brian warner

brian warner — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:47:02 +0000

I built all of the grandstand at the track. I drove the track many times at night. I also drove the road course in one of my karts. It was the king of facillties in the world at the time and would be still the best now wit safer barriers installed. I miss that place so much along with Riverside and the original long beach gp track and Irwindale Raceway.

Thanks for the memories.

Brian Warner

Warner seating Co.

By: SkipinSC

SkipinSC — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:43:28 +0000

I know some will debate this, but I think the beginning of the wane of popularity of OWR dates directly back to the end of OMS and OWR at Pocono. As I’m sure you recall, it was right about that time that the first “split” (CART vs USAC) occurred. If memory serves, almost everyone left USAC with the exception of A. J. Foyt and Danny Ongais, and it also occurs to me this was about the time of the inaugural Michigan 500. Pocono, having sided with USAC was kinda left “holding the bag” as it were.

Once the “Triple Crown” ceased to exist, CART pretty much assumed control of everything except Indy.

By: Tim Nothhelfer

Tim Nothhelfer — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:04:03 +0000

Homestead was originally configured to be a scaled down version of IMS. But the track was reconfigured twice to make it more like the rest of 1.5mile cookie cutter tracks that nascar prefers. Too bad…the drivers had to lift and maybe use the brakes.

By: will-isitmayyet.com

will-isitmayyet.com — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:03:33 +0000

I’m too young to explicitly remember OMS, but the first thing I think of relating to it is that it, Riverside, and Fontana were all within roughly 25 miles of each other. While the former two are really no more than memories of the past at this point, every time I hear of the struggles of Fontana, I just think that the inland empire region is simply not meant to have a race track. If Fontana ever shuts its doors, it’ll just be another example of history repeating itself.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:19:14 +0000

George,
Great post. I knew that “once upon a time” there was a big oval in Ontario, CA, but never new the history.

It was not the only IMS Clone to try to build a labor day tradition. Here in Minnesota, we too once had a 2.5 mile oval running a 500 on labor day. I did a post on it back in the spring over on my site. Check it out if you are interested…

http://20prospect.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/twin-cities-motor-speedway/