It’s a Sunday afternoon in Santa Ana. The year: 1950. The city is nothing but orange groves, bean fields and a house or two. And this is the day you’ve been looking forward to all week.

You pull up to an unused runway at the Orange County Airport, where a man at a gate asks you if you’re going to compete or watch. Observers pay 50 cents. Racers pay $1.

You pull up and see crowds of people perched behind fallen telephone poles serving as dividers between their bodies and the runway. Hot rods and stock cars, everything from “souped up” Model Ts to custom-built drag roadsters, are lined up side-by-side. The engines are revving, the smell of gasoline is in the air, all beneath the sunny California sky.

Maybe you’ll find a buddy who served with you in the Army. Or you might even find your future wife. But you came here for another reason: the exhilarating action of drag racing.

Drag racing has origins in Southern California. Wally Parks, the founder of the National Hot Rod Association, called Burbank home. And drag racing enthusiasts may remember the iconic Lions Drag Strip in Wilmington.

But well before Lions opened its doors, Santa Ana Drags, which marks its 65th anniversary this year, was the place to be.

A Sunday ritual

The 1950s was the decade of the automobile. The post-World War II era brought new technologies, designs and models for the American consumer. This coupled with economic prosperity, brought a boom in automobile sales. By 1960, 80 percent of American families had at least one car and 15 percent had two or more.

Through the late ’40s and early ’50s, a certain subset of young car owners began modifying their rides for optimal performance, a practice known as “hot rodding.” This led to a dangerous epidemic on the city streets of Orange County: street racing.

Orange County residents C.J. “Pappy” Hart, Frank Stillwell and Creighton Hunter wanted to find a safe, organized alternative to street racing. The three were members of the Elks Lodge in Santa Ana at the time.

With the blessing of California Highway Patrol commissioner Clifford E. Peterson and the Orange County Board of Supervisors, they pooled together $1,000 to start their project, a once-a-week opportunity for local car enthusiasts to race in a controlled environment.

They eventually settled on a site; an unused runway at what is now John Wayne Airport. Airport officials would let the trio use the space in exchange for 10 percent of the revenue and a secure insurance policy to cover the drag strip.

The drag strip opened on June 19, 1950, and operated until June 21, 1959, with races Sundays from dawn to dusk.

At the time, the airport was miniature compared to what it is today, says C.J. Hart’s son, Gerald Hart, of Placentia.

“When I was there, there were very few commercial airlines. Bonanza Air Lines, one airline, came in about twice a day. That was it. There was no one there. For the most part, airplanes never came in on Sundays,” he said.

And Santa Ana Drags tried to operate every Sunday – well, most Sundays.

“Races would be held every Sunday except Mother’s Day. They tried it once and they wouldn’t let that happen again. Their wives wouldn’t let them out. It probably caused a lot of divorces,” said Hart.

Santa Ana Drags is recognized by the NHRA as the nation’s first commercial drag strip. The strip would charge a fee for entrance, and almost anyone was welcome to compete. Some would come in their personal rides, others would customize cars specifically to race on Sundays.

“The only other drag strip I knew of was in Goleta,” Hart said. “I’m sure there were a lot others like it. They had an organized group where a bunch of guys would get their car clubs together and actually ran a race somewhere on an abandoned highway. But it wasn’t organized. There were no trophies and no charge. Pappy and his business partners came up with the idea to make it official and charge a fee.”

A few months into the operation of the drag strip, Hunter and Stillwell dropped out and sold their ownership stakes to Hart.

Previously the owner of a Santa Ana service station, Hart oversaw the drag strip. He established the quarter-mile length, adapted from thoroughbred racing. He also installed an electronic timing system, so racers could get accurate times.

Drag racing pioneers such as Art Chrisman, Don Yates and Calvin Rice, were all regulars at the drag strip. Within a few years, as many as 15,000 people lined up to watch races, where some 1,000 races would be held every Sunday.

Racing fans from across the country would come to the drag strip and see how Hart operated the races. This would later spawn imitations across the country, including Lions Drag Strip, which C.J. Hart later managed.

C.J. Hart and his wife, Peggy, became drag racing pioneers in their own right. Peggy would regularly race at Santa Ana in her 1933 Willys coupe and became well known in the drag racing world. Many of the rules C.J. established at Santa Ana Drags were adopted by the NHRA, and he would later become a safety officer for the organization.

Only one fatality occurred during the nine-year history of the drag strip, when a flywheel shot off a car and hit a spectator in the chest. Aside from that incident, it was a relatively peaceful environment.

“Other than a few fights here and there, everyone got along. Everyone was there because they genuinely loved racing, no doubt about that,” said Gerald Hart.

The finish line

Despite the great support, in 1959 Santa Ana Drags was run out of business. Amid plans to expand the airport, the Board of Supervisors evicted Hart. While there were initial discussions of relocating Santa Ana Drags to another site in Orange County, the plan never developed.

C.J. Hart went on to manage Lions Drag Strip from 1965 to 1971 and served as a consultant to a number of tracks and the NHRA for almost the rest of his life. He died June 25, 2004.

The Orange County International Raceway opened in Irvine in 1967 and C.J. Hart served as general manager for a brief time in 1973. He was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1999.

“He was 88 years old when I made him retire. He was falling asleep on the freeway,” Gerald Hart said. “I said, ‘Dad, I’m going to get a phone call from Ohio. Come get your dad, pick him up, pick up the motor home. You’re going to give me a big headache.’ And he said I think you’re right.’

“He probably would have chosen to die on the track if he could have.”

Contact the writer: jomoreno@ocregister.com