The Famoso Bakersfield Raceway

dragstrip A dragstrip is a facility for conducting automobile and motorcycle acceleration events such as drag racing. Although a quarter mile (1320 feet, 402 m) is the best known measure for a drag track, many tracks are eighth mile (201&n ...

is located in

McFarland, California McFarland (formerly, Hunt and Lone Pine) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley, in Kern County, California, United States. McFarland is located north-northwest of Bakersfield and south of Delano, California, Delano, at an elevation of . The po ...

just north of

Bakersfield, California Bakersfield is a city in and the county seat of Kern County, California, United States. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, which is located in the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's population as of th ...

, and is known historically as the home to the annual March Meet, also known as the U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships. The strip, located on Famoso Road between Highway 99 and Highway 65 east of Highway 99 and Highway 46 interchange, was originally built in World War II as an Poso Auxiliary Field training base for the nearby Army Air Corps training base at Shafter's

Minter Field Minter may refer to: Places in the United States *Minter, Alabama, an unincorporated community * Minter Village, California, an unincorporated community *Minter City, Mississippi Minter City is an unincorporated community in Leflore County and ...

. After World War II, the Army abandoned the field. It was in the 1950s that an aspiring group of drag racing pioneers from the Bakersfield area, the Bakersfield Smokers, purchased the west of the strip and made the necessary adjustments to allow for drag racing. The Famoso Bakersfield Raceway hosted the first ever March Meet in 1959 and it helped establish the National Hot Rod Association's (NHRA) legitimacy. The east part of Poso Auxiliary Field became the Poso Airport.. Federal Aviation Administration. Effective 29 July 2010.FAA, Poso-Kern County Airport
/ref> The Famoso Bakersfield Raceway still hosts the March Meet but it is now strictly a "nostalgia drag racing" event. In the 2000s, "Saturday Nitro" events featured Fuel altereds then switched to nostalgic funny cars around 2010. After a driver died in an on-track hit on the guardrail, they stopped hosting these non-sanctioned events. The track also hosts A.N.R.A (American Nostalgia Racing Association) events and the annual NHRA Museum's California Hot Rod Reunion in October as well as a high school racing series and other smaller events. It is run by the Kern County Racing Association, Inc. with major sponsorship from the

Automobile Club of Southern California The Automobile Club of Southern California is the Southern California affiliate of the American Automobile Association (AAA) federation of motor clubs. The Auto Club was founded on December 13, 1900, in Los Angeles as one of the nation's first mo ...

, which also sponsors

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

and NHRA events and tracks throughout Southern California.

References

External links

* http://www.famosoraceway.com * http://famosoraceway.com/history.htm NHRA Division 7 drag racing venues Motorsport venues in California Sports venues in Kern County, California {{Autoracing-venue-stub