Around Rancho Cucamonga: June 2008 Archives

Actually, my attendance at Rancho Cucamonga council meetings is sporadic at best, but sometimes I surprise them by showing up. (Obviously not last night, since I'm still in New Orleans.)

The city attorney always gives me this shocked look, like "why are you bothering to come here?" Sometimes I sense a mild alarm that, if I'm there, something on the agenda must be ripe for mocking. And occasionally something is, although usually I'm only there because I have time to kill, or space to fill, or feel I need some Rancho material.

I'm rather fond of the Rancho Cucamonga council. There's often some banter among council members that works out well for a humor columnist. Also, the chambers are enormous and comfortable. In Pomona we're packed in like sardines.

What works against the Rancho council is that their meetings are always the same week (first and third of the month) as Pomona's (on Mondays) and Ontario's (on Tuesdays). By Wednesday, when Rancho meets, I'm burned out on council meetings.

Also, going to a third meeting in a week tends to tilt my columns too much toward government news. For those who like that sort of thing, good. For those who don't, it's annoying.

So, to strike a balance, I usually skip Rancho's meetings. Sorry, Rancho.

If you're curious about why I go to council meetings at all, or why I pick Ontario and Pomona to focus on, I'll post about that sometime next week.

Clearing out the in-box of my old d_allen e-mail before the account expires, here's a query from Richard Nunez of Pomona:

"A friend and I were talking about the upcoming Pomona Drags at the Fairplex. [No longer upcoming. -- DA]

"Then he said, Do you remember the Lions dragstrip? Yeah, sure do. Then he said, Do you remember the Fontana Drags? My mind went blank for just a moment. Yeah, I do. My folks would take us kids by there to hear them and see them race.

"OK, I was wondering if you can tell me when they started and when they stopped racing. It was on Foothill, I believe it was just past Vineyard going east on Foothill on the north side."

So the Fontana Drags were in Cucamonga? Hmm. Anybody able to shed some light on this?

* UPDATE: The dragstrip was in the present-day Village of Heritage neighborhood (see comments section for more) far, far east of Richard's memory. Sports Editor Lou Brewster gives extra details: "The strip ran north by east, east of East Avenue, by the San Sevaine flood control channel. The worst thing that happened there was a guy literally losing his head...Races usually ran on Sunday. It was part of a circuit that included Lions (Long Beach), Irwindale and Orange County."