CAJON SPEEDWAY TRACK HISTORY For forty ... - City of El Cajon

and Hoagland’s daughter (Vicki) would also end up racing at Cajon. Bill Hoagland would become
the 1990 pony stock champion at Cajon.
And so by 1960 it seemed as if County Stadium, originally planned as a baseball facility, was
destined to remain a high school football stadium and a motorcycle race track.
But then over the winter of 1960‐1961, a weird series of events combined to lead County
Stadium into becoming Cajon Speedway. Since about 1937 auto racing in San Diego County had
taken place on several tracks around the county, but the most successful occurred in Balboa
Stadium. In late 1960 it became obvious that the Los Angeles Chargers were moving to San
Diego and would use Balboa Stadium as their facility. Tom Haynes and Frank Guthrie, the auto
racing promoters in the stadium, announced plans to build a new 1/2 mile dirt oval on Kearny
Mesa.
But that track was never built. In early 1961 it looked as if auto racing in San Diego County was
going to be without a home.
But Tom Jackman, the man most responsible for the El Cajon Industrial Park and also owner of
one of the top racing machines in the San Diego Racing Association, approached Earle Brucker
Sr. with the idea of constructing a 1/4 mile dirt oval at County Stadium.
"Jackman talked to my father and they were ready to build a race track," Brucker Jr. recounts.
"But they didn't have anyone to run it. One night I got a phone call from my father. I was told I
was going to run it."
The rest is history.
1964 ` Photographer: Bob Hardee