Carrell Speedway

Carrell Speedway was a first class facility and a half mile which Aggy copied for Ascot. The track was paved in 1948 and ran that way until its demise in 1954. In 1951 NASCAR held its first race west of the Mississippi valley.

The half-mile dirt track stood near the corner of 174th Street and Vermont Avenue. Though not far from the site of the more well-remembered Ascot Park, the two racetracks were not built on the exact same spot; the Ascot raceway was located south of Carrell, at 182nd Street and Vermont in Harbor Gateway. (Because of its proximity to Gardena, track operators always referred to it as being in Gardena.)

History
Carrell Speedway was built by Emmett J. Malloy in 1940 on land owned by Judge Frank R. Carrell, a longtime justice of the peace and community leader in Gardena. Carrell was a member of the first graduating class of Gardena High School in 1907, and over the years owned a large amount of property in the area, including a share of Hollywood Park racetrack. (Judge Carrell died of a heart attack on Sept. 27, 1947, and hundreds turned out to pay tribute to him at his memorial service.)

Carrell Speedway quickly became a hotbed of West Coast racing, hosting all kinds of events, from open-wheel racing to stock cars, sprint cars, motorcycles and foreign cars. It remained a dirt track until October 1948, when it was paved.

Some of the era’s most popular racers competed there, including Johnny Parsons, Lou Figaro, Troy Ruttman, Marshall Teague and Frank “Rebel” Mundy.

In retrospect, perhaps the most famous driver to cut his teeth on racing at Carrell was 1963 Indianapolis 500 winner and current Rolling Hills resident Parnelli Jones, who writes about his days at Carrell in the early 1950s in his new book, “As a Matter of Fact, I AM Parnelli Jones.” He’ll be signing copies of it at Barnes and Noble in Torrance on Wednesday, May 1, 2013, at 7:00 p.m.

Another famous person associated with Carrell Speedway was film star Mickey Rooney. He played scuffling mechanic-turned race car driver Billy Coy in “The Big Wheel,” which was released in 1949. The film was set at Carrell, and used a good deal of stock footage from races held there.

The nascent NASCAR racing organization was only in its third year of existence in 1951, but the fourth race of that season turned out to be historic in hindsight: The stock car race at Carrell won by Marshall Teague in his Hudson Hornet on April 8, 1951, was the first NASCAR race to be held west of the Mississippi River.

Racing continued to be popular during the early 1950s. Legendary racing promoter J.C. Agajinian, who went on to operate Ascot Park for decades, also managed Carrell Speedway for two separate stints, from 1947-1950, when he had a falling out with track management, and then from Dec. 1953 until the track’s closure on June 1, 1954.

Track officials decided to hold a series of big races over the final weekend of its operation, including the fourth annual “Poor Man’s Indianapolis,” a 500-mile NASCAR event featuring 55 late-model stock cars. (John Soares won $1,500 for his first-place finish in a field of 32 cars.) A final race featuring NASCAR hardtops was held on May 31, 1954, before Carrell Speedway went dark for the last time.