When the Irwindale Speedway opened on March 27, 1999, some of the biggest names in auto racing showed up to celebrate Southern California's brand new $10 million race track. But the occasion was marred by a tragedy just minutes after the opening.
During a practice session, a sprint car driver named Casey Diemert was whipping around a curve when he failed to see a stalled vehicle. He slammed into the wall at 100 miles per hour and flipped his car.
It took an emergency crew 25 minutes to cut him out of the vehicle. He was airlifted to Arcadia Methodist Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Diemert was only 23 years old.
Hours later the stands filled with spectators, but track officials decided not to make any public announcement about Diemert’s death. The speeches from politicians, fireworks and the performance by the USC Marching Band all happened as planned.
In many ways, the story of opening day has been the story of the Irwindale Speedway: It has managed to keep the bad news from closing the track.
Drivers pay to get an official time, displayed in green at the finish line of the drag strip. Photo by David Weinberg
Auto racing has been in decline for over a decade.
NASCAR races at Irwindale were expected to bring big profits. But six years after the Speedway opened, NASCAR’s popularity started to decline. And then in 2011, NASCAR dropped Irwindale from its schedule altogether.
The following year, the Speedway’s owners filed for bankruptcy.
These days, there aren’t enough people paying to use the track to sustain a business on this giant piece of land. In a bid to keep the track open over the past few years, the Speedway has put on monster truck races, demolition derbies and Santa’s Speedway, an event where people could drive through Christmas light displays and go sledding on snow that had been trucked in.
In 2017 the city of Irwindale announced plans to demolish the track and build an outlet mall, though that never happened. Track officials did not respond to our interview requests, but according to the city's website, Irwindale is moving forward with plans to demolish the Speedway and build an industrial and commercial park on the land.
The Speedway will hold its Farewell Extravaganza on Saturday, Dec. 21.
The track has been limping along thanks to people like Jimmy John, the 26-year-old owner of a very fast Camaro.
John was one of dozens of people who brought their cars to the drag strip on a weekday evening this month, and paid to get an official time on the 1/8th mile strip – a number that proves how fast your car is.
I met him in the parking lot where he was doing a safety inspection on the parachute sticking out of the rear bumper of his car. “This is my second home,” he told me, “where I get to come and breathe.”
Before John started coming to Irwindale, he did his racing on the streets. You’ve probably seen videos of street takeovers, entire intersections overrun by mobs of kids, cars doing donuts and drag racing on public streets.
John was a part of that world until a good friend told him about Irwindale, “and ever since then, I've been here every single Thursday.”
As the sun sinks between the huge conveyor belts of the rock quarry that borders the track to the West, two cars pull up to the starting line of the drag. Justin Lynch is here to race his 1967 Nova. He has been coming to this track since he was a little kid with his dad and uncle. They flew in for the final drag racing taking place tonight.
Lynch is not happy about the track closing: “It sucks. They're going to force everyone in the street and it's going to cause big problems. You're talking high horsepower cars, full-blown drag cars being on the street. That's not going to be good.”
Most recently the Speedway has had two big draws: the drag strip and the burnout box, a big oval made of concrete barriers. Inside the oval, it looks like a giant toddler went crazy with a bucket of black paint – tire marks.
One at a time, drivers take their moment in the spotlight, doing donuts, some getting props from the DJ, others getting dunked on. Clouds of smoke from the screeching tires billow up, the smell of burning rubber fills the air.
A few dozen spectators sit in the bleachers watching and filming with their phones. The turnout isn’t huge, which is one of the big reasons this was the last night to take a spin at the Speedway.