Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Watsonville is a coastal town and real close to Monterey and Carmel if you or your wife are so inclined. good way to spend the day doing some wife-friendly things during the day ahead of the Friday night races. For a little more stripped down beach experience, head out of Watsonville to Manresa or Sunset state beaches. Heading a little bit north on highway 1 there's Capitola and Santa Cruz beach & boardwalk.

from the racing side, the feedback youve gotten this far is spot on...ocean/Watsonville, Placerville, Antioch will give you some good shows 

when i was in high school and lived in salinas we would go to manresa to body surf. it was a great place for that!

a couple of times we took of early in the morning from moss landing and walked and surfed and walk the beach all the way to sea cliff beach! we would body surf and skim board along the way. those were the days. we had a friend in his 20's and his wife would meet us at sea cliff with the car in the afternoon. then sometimes we would drive to santa cruz and play til dark.

I used to live in Northern California for 6 years and its hands down the best place to watch wing sprint car racing in the country.  I have lived in New Jersey (near PA), Indiana and 4 other states and you cant beat the bullrings of NorCal.  Plus, there is tons to do during the week in San Fran, Santa Cruz, Wine Country, Monterey....... and so, so many more place to visit.

Placerville is a must see track.  It's a high banked, tight 1/4 mile.  The grandstand only holds 2,000 or so and it's right on top of the track.  You have to get there by qualfying or you will not get a seat.  They have a very passionte fan base.  The King of the West series puts on a great show and has the top names on west coast.  Check out some youtube videos to see what I mean.

Ocean Speedway has some of the best racing in the area (IMO) as the track is nice and wide and perfect for sprints.  Even though its a 360 show, over half the field will be 410 drivers and many of the King of the West drivers support this series/track.  Plus, you can spend the day in Santa Cruz.  Bring a jacket, it gets cold when the sun goes down.

Antoich is not in the best area and a little rundown but the KWS 410's always put on a great show. Another place that will be packed before qualfying so get there early.  The plus of this track is you will be very close to San Fran so another great place to spend the day. 

I haven't been to Stockon Speedway as it's only been open a few years but the video I have seen looks like a very racy track.

Silver Dollar Speedway runs a weekly 410 class on Friday nights but it's a little far from San Fran (vs. these other tracks) and the car count could be below 20. 

My reco is the Ocean/Placeville weekend on July 18th/19th and then Ocean/Antioch on July 25th/26th.  You will see all the top drivers in both 360 & 410 at these shows.  All races should have 24 to 30+ cars.

Quick question, where are you coming in from sprintsornuthin?  This will be a trip to remember...