Remembering West Capital Raceway
Super-modifieds line up on the frontstrech at West Capital Raceway. (Photo West Capital Raceway Alumni)
Mike Larson reflects on the West Sacramento dirt track that’s been gone since 1980.
Text: Saroyan Humphrey
Spotlight | Even though West Capital Raceway has been gone for nearly 40 years, the dirt short track still lingers in the hearts and minds of those who were there. It played a monumental role in developing a heritage of winning open-wheel drivers and helped foster the growth of auto racing in Northern California from 1946 until it closed after one race in 1980.
West Capital featured super-modifieds on Saturday nights and open-competition races for Northern Auto Racing Club [NARC] sprint cars and Bay Cities Racing Association [BCRA] midgets.
• Related: Johnny Anderson | Wally Baker | Leroy Van Conett
It also figured prominently in shaping the prestige of the Gold Cup Race of Champions sprint car race, now in its 67th year and held at Chico after West Capital closed. Located just off Interstate 80 in West Sacramento, the track’s location is now home to a trucking terminal. A monument, erected in 2003, stands as a small testament to the roar of racing engines that once inhabited this side of town.
* * *
It’s a chilly January evening in Elk Grove, California, and Mike and Janet Larson are still reeling from their son Kyle’s climactic win at the Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma, just a few days ago. It was a prestigious victory for the NASCAR and open-wheel dirt superstar driver who called it “a bigger win than the Daytona 500 would be.”
Mike, 64, thinks about other prestigious races that his son has won during his young career. He remembers his first of two Gold Cup wins at Chico’s Silver Dollar Speedway in 2011.
All in the family: Mike and Janet Larson (far left) celebrate in victory lane after Kyle won the 2020 Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Photo Jared Allen)
“At that time, Gold Cup was the biggest win of his career,” Mike says. “He was just a local guy and that win was big to him. Even though [the] Knoxville [Nationals] is a bigger sprint car race, but—for us, our family—the Gold Cup was the biggest. It was always the biggest race of the year around here, and that goes back to the days of West Capital.
“But, now that he’s won Chili Bowl, I think that tops the Gold Cup,” Mike continues with a laugh.
And, as Mike remembers growing up at “West Cap” and idolizing drivers Leroy Van Conett and Wally Baker, West Sacramento is where we’re headed. The track on the edge of town was the center of the universe for many Northern California racers and the place where 5-year-old Mike Larson first discovered his life-long love for racing in 1961.
* * *
When you rolled up to West Capital, what do you remember seeing first?
Mike Larson: It was the ramp. The parking lot and the ticket booth were on ground level and the grandstands were built on a dirt mound. So, you’d buy your ticket, pass through the gate, and you’d climb up the ramp and then—boom—there’s the track. I remember little Bobby Gerould selling the programs, his mom was working the merchandise booth and his dad was up there, doing the announcing.
To me, we were so fortunate to have Gary Gerould [as the track announcer]. He is the best, ever. He was so far ahead of the game back then. It was unheard of to hear drivers interviewed. But what Gary Gerould figured out was, when the guys showed up, before they got in their uniforms, he went down to the pits and interviewed ’em on a tape recorder. He would play those tapes through the night to fill the dead gaps. And that was great! You didn’t get that anywhere.
He’s the [Sacramento] Kings radio announcer now, but back when he was doing Indy Car and drag racing [coverage on ABC and ESPN], he was the best, and we had him as the local announcer for years! That was the heyday: The last 15 years at West Cap were unbelievable. It was a whole package: the racing, everything.
What has kept the mystique of West Capital alive today? People are nostalgic for those days. What was it that made it special to so many people?
Larson: It’s the studs that came out of there. There’s a ton. After about the first three or four years of the World of Outlaws, Tim Green was No. 4 in wins, behind the Big Three [Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell and Doug Wolfgang].
“West Capital was the place you had to prove it. That was where everybody met.”
Look at what Jimmy Sills has done. Gary Patterson, Brent Kaeding, Jimmy Boyd, Johnny Anderson, Van Conett, all [National Sprint Car] Hall of Famers. I don’t know if you could take a group of guys that were in one period and have a better region in the country. I’m talking the ’60s through its closing in 1980. I don’t know that there was a better group of drivers anywhere in the country, and they were all running at West Capital and all of Northern California. West Capital was the place you had to prove it. That was where everybody met. It’s kind of like how San Jose was for the pavement guys back then.
1978 Gold Cup Race of Champions: Steve Kinser (11), Sammy Swindell (44), Jack Hewitt (18), and Johnny Anderson (21).
Plus, back in those days, there were no support divisions because you had 60 guys showing up every week. To me, that’s one of the things that has hurt sprint car racing, because back then, there was only one kind of sprint car. You never said what size the engine was because it didn’t matter. You could run a big-block 454-cubic-inch engine vs. a 283 Chevy and you could be competitive.
What do you remember about your first time going to West Capital as a kid?
Larson: Well, I remember going there for the Gold Cup [in 1961], when they were qualifying on Saturday. I went with Tim [Green] and his family. We were both 5 years old. They lived three doors down; I lived on 53rd Avenue and he lived on the corner of 53rd and Harms Way. We’d met in kindergarten, the first week of school.
One thing I remember from that day is, there was a break in the action and Tim, his two younger brothers and myself, we went out there, on the half-mile race track and we just started running. We decided to run a lap. I could hear the announcer, he was commenting on us boys being out there. I don’t know where the officials were.
But that wasn’t my first time being at West Capital. The first time was a few weeks earlier, during the first week of school, when my dad took me and I bumped into Tim at the track. I said, “What are you doing here?” And he said, “See the purple 00? That’s my dad’s car.” And, I was just like, “Oh, wow, can I come over to your house?” He said, “Yeah, come on over tomorrow morning.” From then on, I was just hooked, big time.
“One night, Leroy Van Conett came up and sat down next to me and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, here’s Leroy Van Conett!’”
1961 was my first year going to the Gold Cup and I haven’t missed a Gold Cup ever since—and I won’t—even though it’s so far from what it used to be. But, to me it’s still the Gold Cup.
Did you start going to the races every weekend?
Larson: No, my dad was a race fan, but he just wasn’t going to do it every week; he wasn’t that dedicated. So, my mom needed to find a babysitter for my sister and I and she stumbled on a woman to watch us from our neighborhood. I don’t remember her first name, but her husband Arley Keylon kept and maintained a [race] car too and their driver was Leroy Van Conett and he is [and was] my hero! Just following him, connected me to the racing, because I just fell in love with the guy.
I was 6 or 7 years old and he was the nicest man and I just thought, “This is my guy.” I still have got that feeling about him. So, luckily, for me, they were willing to take me to the races; the Greens were willing to take me to the races, if my dad wouldn’t. I was going almost weekly. But then when we moved to Elk Grove when I was 12, I was bummed and my first question was, “Do I still get to go to West Capital?” I remember my dad looking at me and saying, “Well, yeah! Why would that change?” And I said, “Elk Grove is so far away!” And they just laughed. But to me, it was.
Where did you like to sit at West Capital?
Larson: In those earlier days the pits were in turn one and two, so the drivers, if they weren’t out there on the track, would come up and sit in turn one and watch, and that’s where I always wanted to sit. One night, Leroy Van Conett came up and sat down next to me and I’m like, “Oh, my God, here’s Leroy Van Conett!”
One night he asked me a question, where I lived and I told him I had moved to Elk Grove, which was only about 10 minutes from where he lived in Galt. I think I said, “I’m closer to where you live now.” And he said, “That’s cool; you need to come to my house and hang out with my boy, Roy. He’s about four or five years younger.” At the time, he was just a little kid. But I couldn’t do it. He was my idol and I couldn’t bring myself to call him up and ask to come over.
So, how did your friendship with Tim Green evolve?
Larson: When we were in third grade, Tim moved during Christmas break, but we stayed in contact. Like during Christmas, or Easter breaks, he’d come to my house, or I’d go to his and it was always racing related! We’d spend time either racing slot cars, racing bikes or whatever.
Also, our dads were both into model car making and Tim’s dad owned a body shop. My dad [Lary] ran the body shop out at Mather Air Force Base. He was a civilian and he supervised a bunch of GIs that did the work. There was a plentiful supply of masking tape, always.
“I started building my own [super modified] replicas almost 100% out of masking tape.”
Tim and I would appropriate our dads’ models, and once we got to be around 6 years old; we built a little dirt track out in my backyard and we’d roll these things around. They were plastic and they’d break and we started using masking tape to tape them back together.
Over time, Tim went on to race go-karts. But my mom was not going to let her baby race go-karts. Although my dad would have loved it and he would have been an excellent crew chief; because he was a fabricator, he could do anything.
So, with the model cars, I started building my own [super modified] replicas almost 100% out of masking tape. I would use wire for the bumpers and nerf bars. The roll cage was 3/4-inch tape rolled up and then I’d use wire on the inside to shape it. I pretty much had the whole field built at West Capital.
Above are a few of the surviving, 40-plus-year-old super-modified replicas that Mike Larson built from masking tape and wire when he was a young teenager. Click on an image for a larger view. (Photos courtesy Mike Larson)
The time it took to build the car was as much time as it took to paint it. I was really particular; I was into it. I spent thousands of hours building those cars. Once I got to be 10-11 years old, I stopped rolling ’em around on the floor and they became like models to me. I’ve kept them over the years but they have not stayed in good condition to show. But I have a good 10, or so, that are in really good shape: Johnny Anderson, Wayne Sue, Howard Kaeding, Wally Baker.
One night, I took about four of them to West Capital to show to Wally Baker’s crew chief, who was my uncle’s friend, and I was sitting there with them on my lap, watching the races, and somebody pulled ’em out and was looking at ’em and then, the next thing I knew, they took them up to the booth to show Gary Gerould.
About five minutes later, he’s on the mic saying, “Wow, somebody just brought me up some replicas of the cars that race here and my God, I’m telling you, these things are exact, right down to the bumpers and nerf bars. He was going on and on and I’m sitting there in the grandstand. It was kind of a double-edge feeling. I was in this dream, almost. I couldn’t believe Gary Gerould was talking about my cars and the other side was panic; I was sweating and pitting out.
The next thing you know, I have car owners searching me out, wanting to see the cars. I was getting people trying to order them. That was about 1973 or so, and I didn’t really know the value of what I was doing. But think about it, there were no die-cast cars at that time. So, if you wanted to have a car like yours, I was the source. But I was selling ’em for $25 and when I think back now, with the time I had invested, they would have been worth $100.
Then I built a track on a 4x8 sheet of plywood and I basically made a replica of West Capital to set the cars on for display. It had the fence posts, the light poles, flag stand. I did it out of papier-mâché. I used newspapers to bank it and covered the track with Bondo, so, it looked like clay and it had a solid surface.
“I took a router and routed in two lanes on the track and turned it into a slot car track.”
In fact, I took it to the state fair in 1974 and it was a hit. It was probably too big of a hit because I told the security at the fair to set up a rope barrier around it because I couldn’t be there all the time and I didn’t want people to steal all of my cars. But, sure enough, on the first day, somebody stole the Wayne Sue car. He was the hot guy that year at West Capital and that was my favorite car! So, I pulled the display. It was only in there for one day.
Soon after that, I decided to build super-modifieds as slot cars. So, basically I taught myself how to solder and started building frames; the bodies were still tape but the car was a slot car with the frame built out of brass tubing and rod. So, on the track display table, I took a router and routed in two lanes on the track and turned it into a slot car track. From then on, everything became slot cars.
What did you use for reference material when you were building the replica cars?
Larson: Programs. I would buy a program every week. I have every program that I have ever bought, to this day. They’re all boxed up in my attic. I probably haven’t looked at ’em in 40 years. But that was all the reference you could find, unless you bought the black and white 8x10s from the photo booth. The programs were in black and white. The colors were just what I remembered from my brain.
My mom and dad were really good about encouraging me with building my cars. I would spend a lot of time doing it. I was a normal kid but there would be times when I’d have it in my brain, “I gotta go make that brand-new car.” And, my buddies would be like, “Let’s go out and play basketball.” And I’d say, “I got this car I gotta build.” And, they’d tell me I was so weird, but they did appreciate the cars I made.
I think [mom and dad] saw it as kind of an art thing. I was doing something that nobody else could do and they’d give me the money to buy the model paints and that kind of stuff. I’m appreciative of that.
I wish my mom would have let me race go-karts but, if I had, who knows what my life might have been like. Kyle and my daughter Andrea may not even be here. Kyle may not have even have become a race car driver; things work for a reason.
And, it was all related to West Capital …
Larson: I was racing slot cars with fans from the track, and they were friends. When Tim moved to Iowa [to race sprint cars] that first year, in 1979, I built him a slot car version of the Jensen Construction car that he was racing at that time. Tim ended up giving that car to the owners of Hagginwood Raceway, which was the slot car track here in Sacramento on Marysville Boulevard. It’s where I would go to buy parts. They had a couple of those big eight-lane road courses with super banking and all that. But I never raced on those tracks’ my cars were built to turn left. They had stagger; the left rear was smaller than the right rear.
Three wide: A pack of Mike’s handmade slot car sprints head into a turn on his three-groove 1/32-scale West Capital Raceway that he keeps in the garage.
I’ve heard your slot car races became pretty popular.
Larson: Yeah, I met Jimmy Sills through the slot cars; he was Tim Green’s brother in law. I had the slot car stuff and people were like, “Shoot, bring us over, man!” It was through the slot cars that I met Brian and Roger Crockett, all kinds of crew people and drivers. I’d have races in my garage and there would be almost 30 people there and we’re throwing $5 into the pot, $20 to win the main event. It was an every-other-week thing.
Do have a favorite memory from West Capital?
Larson: Well, there are two. Once Leroy Van Conett found sprint cars, he left West Capital and he would only come back for open-competition shows, when the supers would run against the sprint cars. So, I became a Wally Baker fan. My dad was a Wally Baker fan and he used to always razz me about Leroy and I think it was because I just had all that devotion to him. But then Jimmy Gordon got killed at the [Sacramento] Fairgrounds [on October 25, 1970] and Jack Gordon hired Wally Baker to race. I just felt bad for Jack, and Leroy wasn’t there weekly. So, Wally Baker became my favorite driver at West Capital.
“… we’d get a ride with my cousin sometimes, or my dad, or my grandpa, whatever.”
So, West Cap used to have the Tri-Holiday Sweepstakes, which was the three holiday weekends, and other than the Gold Cup, those were the three biggest races of the year and they were always on Monday night. It was a big deal; you got everybody. They were 100-lappers.
Anyway, Wally Baker is leading the Tri-Holiday Sweeps race and he goes into turn three, on the last lap, he’s going to win the race, he’s got that much of a lead and the radiator hose blows off and he spins in his own water going into turn three. And I remember all of us melting down. Well, he does two 360s and just keeps it going. He just barely wins the race! That place went crazy. It was one of those memories that will never leave me, because it was a stunner.
The other one was Leroy Van Conett winning the Gold Cup in 1976, when he beat Sammy [Swindell] and [Rick] Ferkel. What I remember about that was walking out of the track to go to our car and I just remember looking up at the sky and saying to myself, “This is the best day of my life.” [laughs] That’s the way I felt. I was 20 years old. It was almost like Kyle winning the Chili Bowl the other night. It was a feeling of relief.
Passing down the passion: above, Grandpa Larson builds a slot car track as a Christmas gift for grandson Owen at Kyle’s race shop in North Carolina. (Photos Janet Larson)
You met your wife Janet in junior high school and dated at West Capital; how did that unfold?
Larson: Late in our ninth-grade year, that is when we started hanging around, I took her to her first race out at West Cap and then she went with me to all of them. A few months into it, she was like, “Is this all you do?” [laughs] And, I said, “Pretty much. But, please don’t make me choose.” I hated to say it that way, but she needed to know: This stuff is real, and it’s real serious to me. No matter what my place is, I am going to be a sprint car fan, no matter what.
In the beginning, I didn’t even have a license. For about a year, we’d get a ride with my cousin sometimes, or my dad, or my grandpa, whatever. However we could get out there. But it didn’t take long; I had my license on my birthday in ’72.
Obviously, you can see what happened with Janet’s decision.
Where you there on the final night?
Larson: Yep, it was May 1980. I remember, San Jose Speedway shut down a year or two before and thinking, “Oh man, that’s a bummer, I’m sure glad it’s not West Capital.” Then, boom, it hit us and it was just like a shock, you know. It was so out of the blue; there were no rumblings underground and it was a shocker to the media around here, too.
The media put the numbers up and said, “West Capital Raceway attracts more paying customers than any sporting event in Sacramento” when they totaled it all up for a season. Well, then people were, like, “Why are they doing this?” [Promoter] John Padjen came out and said, “The land had become too valuable,” and all that, and, “The track was run down and needed replacing. But isn’t it great we’re going to Chico, a nice fairgrounds facility.” I think I’d only been up there one time.
It was just a shock.
At the end of 1979, it was over and there was all this clamor of people and media and there was so much drumbeat to still race at West Cap. So, Padjen had that one final race [in May]. Ed Organ won it and I remember walking out of there just stunned. It was almost like my life was over; how is this going to work from here on out? I’ve got to travel now. But obviously, time marches on and wounds heal. I still wish it was there.
Ed Organ at West Capital. (Photo West Capital Raceway Alumni)
You’ve been a part of keeping the West Capital Raceway Alumni Association alive, and you’ve been a part of some historical events over the years, right?
Larson: Yeah, Janet and I have contributed to it, but it’s difficult; every year that goes by, the younger people have no clue about West Capital, just like Kyle. I’ve told him that West Capital is the most exciting track I have ever been to, and then he’ll search around [online] for video. And, then he’ll go, “I don’t know, dad, it doesn’t look all that impressive to me.” [laughs]
Well, what you see online are home movies shot with an 8mm camera in bright daylight; you’re not going to find professional video coverage of the main events from back in those days.
Larson: Yeah, and all the news coverage you would get back then, was on Channel 10. Creighton Sanders, he was the sports guy, and every Monday night, they would have the West Capital two-minute highlight segment. But that would be all you’d ever see and then it would be gone forever. You couldn’t go to a website and pull it up later.
I still have dreams about being at West Capital. They used to be pretty regular, but as time has gone by it’s now about once or twice a year. It’s always about the same: it starts out with a feeling of euphoria that the track is back open. There are fans and cars and it’s all so real. It’s not so much about the racing as it is just that warm feel of seeing something you’ve been missing so much. But, every time, you wake up and it’s all gone. For a moment or two it’s pretty depressing. I almost wish I didn’t dream about the place, but it obviously has a strong connection to who I am, and I’ll always cherish those memories.