Thursday Night Thunder: How Irwindale Raceway Keeps Grassroots Racing Alive in Southern California

Irwindale is a small city in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley, largely made up of rock quarries and warehouses. Aside from the fact that it’s home to America’s most popular sriracha hot sauce, most people wouldn’t even give it a second look on a map. But if you’re part of SoCal car culture, the Irwindale Speedway is an important nexus for local events and camaraderie. Nowhere is that pulse stronger than at the track’s Thursday Night Thunder drag events.

Situated in the southeast corner of the Irwindale Event Center (known as the “House of Drift,” for the in-crowd) is the Irwindale Dragstrip. It is the last remaining public drag strip in Los Angeles County. Though the Speedway itself opened in 1999, the eighth-mile strip kicked off in 2001, when it started hosting formalized test-and-tune drag nights to help combat illegal street racing.

That activity evolved into the event we know today as Thursday Night Thunder. For the modest sum of forty dollars, any driver over eighteen years old, armed with a valid license and a car that passes a straightforward tech inspection, can make as many passes down the strip as possible. Though such events were once commonplace across the country, race tracks and drag strips in America have fallen on hard times. Irwindale itself has faced the threat of closure quite a few times in recent years. 

I didn’t want to regret missing out on experiencing the place myself, so I left work in a hurry one Thursday in October, jetted home to get my 2009 BMW M3, and pointed the car’s nose toward Irwindale. On the way, I battled traffic as I crossed many freeways between my home in Orange County and the Speedway. With all that time to myself, I recalled the last time I staged a car at a proper drag strip; it was back in 2006, and I was a senior in high school in San Francisco’s Bay Area. Sonoma Raceway held a similar event called “Wednesday Night Drags.” I would leave my high school in Pacifica and drive forty miles to race my 2001 Pontiac Trans Am. It was a short-lived but formative part of my life as a car enthusiast. 

Thankfully, even with traffic, I managed to get to Irwindale shortly after 4:00 p.m., when the gates open for Thursday Night Thunder. My first stop: tech inspection. The meetup was easy enough to find, as long as you followed the cars that looked like they belonged at a drag strip. If your car is fairly new and almost completely stock, like my E92-generation M3, inspection is as simple as filling out a form.

With that out of the way I was off to the races, or so I thought. I’d made a bit of an error by arriving early. The track wasn’t even hot yet. Better wander around to see what other cars were lurking around, right?

I found Joe and Ricardo in the parking lot, prepping their impressive Honda S2000. I didn’t want to bother a couple of busy guys, but I couldn’t help but ask a few questions about what has to be among the wildest S2000s I’ve ever seen. My best guess—there’s more than $100K under that hood. The turbo was almost the same size as the engine, and the external wastegate alone was the size of an ordinary turbo. The whole package puts down 1400 hp, according to the owners, and is capable of running a staggeringly fast mid-four-second eighth-mile time. (For those who speak quarter-mile, that’s the mid-six-second range.) Neither Jesse nor Johnny Tran would stand a chance!

While I was ogling the S2000, I noticed a ’55 Chevy four-door hiding behind a Suburban and its trailer. It sported all the right hardware: a hood scoop the size of a mailbox, some slicks out back, and flat-black paint job with flames strewn across the front end. Big Two-Lane Blacktop vibes, if that crew ever needed space for a child’s car seat. (There were, in fact, two children’s seats belted up in the back of the Chevy.) I was snapping off a few photos when the owner, Carl Smith, showed up. 

Carl was friendly—happy enough to talk to a random dude with a camera about the car and his time in the drag racing scene. As it turns out, the ’55 is a daily driver that’s been in Carl’s family for literally his entire life. 

“My mom bought the car when she was pregnant with me. She wanted something strong to drive around in. She brought me home from the hospital in it but my dad wrecked it when I was three. When I was 15, I told my dad I wanted it for my first car, and he told me if I rebuilt it I could have it. I learned to work on cars and rebuilt it. I even took my own daughters home from the hospital in it.” 

I asked about what’s been done to the engine. His answer was simple: “Everything.” A glance around the engine bay backed up that statement. A Holley Sniper EFI unit sits atop the manifold, a bright red Edelbrock nitrous solenoid catches the eye of those in the know, and a classic set of Mickey Thompson magnesium valve covers completes the look. (Carl scored those while he worked for a speed shop, a long time ago.) The whole car was overflowing with hot-rod nostalgia. 

The sound of the numerous race cars firing up interrupted our conversation. The sweet smell of race fuel mixed with burned rubber wafted across the parking lot from the burnout box. Now that track was hot, it was time to get out there and make a run. 

I donned my helmet and headed off toward the staging lanes. Immediately, I felt a rush of nervousness and excitement as I sat next to seasoned racers, their faces like stone, solely focused on a clean pass. The cars in my midst drowned out the sound of my M3. Normally I can hear the deep rumble of the 4.0-liter V-8, but the only way I could tell it was running was from the vibrations I felt through the seat. This was a whole other world, nothing like the track days I’d attended at Willow Springs and Buttonwillow. 

As cars started to make their runs, I inched closer and closer to the burnout box. Anxiety crept in. It was at this moment I was thankful for people like Sam, a regular around the track I’d met during the tech inspection. He shared some words of wisdom: “Just do your burnout and make a run, that’s all. If you have any questions after, just ask.” Encouraged a bit, and recognizing that I was basically past the point of no return, I psyched myself up and went for it. 

I pulled through the wall of tire smoke into the burnout box, laid down what was perhaps the weakest burnout in Irwindale history, and staged a car for the first time in 18 years. That experience nearly two decades prior involved a car with an automatic, so I’d never before launched using a manual transmission at a drag strip. It’s a whole different situation, I mean, there’s a third pedal to think about! And then there was the awkward moment when the car in the next lane pulled up: a ’68 Camaro with a 327 badge on the side and a suspicious blower peeking through the hood. (I later learned that motor was, uh, not a 327. How about an LS-series small-block with methanol injection?) I gotta admit to being intimidated.

I managed, however, to remember one important bit of information: Always take off on the final yellow. 

First yellow, second yellow, third yellow—clutch out! On the throttle! I fumbled the launch, the Camaro next to me gone in a flash as I granny shifted into second. Fortunately, this was not a proper race. Second gear got me across the finish line, and I went off to collect my time slip. I’d ticked off a run of 10.191 at 71 mph. This was a slow pass, considering the car is capable of a 12.7 in the quarter-mile. A driver issue, because yours truly was a) new at this and b) a bit too worried about the BMW’s clutch. 

The crew running the show at Irwindale has been at it for a while, and it shows in their professionalism. Runs bang off with the consistency of Japan’s public transit system, so even when the track is at max capacity, it’s still possible to get in at least three passes before the night ends. The track doesn’t really get crowded until after dark, so if you want to get the most from your visit, show up early. 

After my run, I watched the cars, trucks, and the occasional motorcycle make their hard launches down the track. The metal stretched across decades: modern American muscle cars, gassers, classic muscle machines that you know the owner has spent years perfecting, imports of all kinds, and it wouldn’t be drag racing in SoCal without a few hot-rodded Volkswagen Beetles in the mix. This melting pot of performance cars created a symphony for the senses. Sound, smell, and vibrations combined to form an atmosphere felt and beloved by generations of car lovers.

And as the night went on it became clear that this wasn’t just about cars, but about the community around them. Families, friends, and competitors gathered to feed their passion. Swap stories. Share their lives.

Irwindale Dragstrip isn’t merely a holdout drag strip in L.A. County. This place is a connection to the past, to the history of motorsport and its grassroots, and to the community of people who built and nurtured it. If we care about car culture today and want to ensure it has a tomorrow, we should support places like this. So next time you’re bored and happen to be in L.A. or O.C. on a Thursday, set sail for Irwindale. Cheer on your favorites, race, or simply spectate to feel the Thunder. No matter what, you’ll have a damn good time.