Quarter-Mile from the Past - Antique Nationals

Pay no attention to the housing developments packed with half-million dollar homes, the fast food restaurants, and the strip malls that have popped up in Palmdale, California, in the last few decades.

We prefer to think of Palmdale the way it was in the days before the L.A. development boom echoed out at the northern end of the county. Before this remote, dusty town on the edge of the Mojave--where neighbors were once separated by miles of desert--became one of the fastest growing cities in America. Before the 14 Freeway replaced Pearblossom Highway as the quickest way around.

For hot rodders, Pearblossom is still the fastest route to the old days. It's the way to Los Angeles County Raceway, where others who think just like us go to relive the past at the Antique Nationals every June.

The Antique Nationals began in 1970 which, according to the promoters, makes it the original nostalgia drag race. The car show area adjacent to the pits is open to everybody, but the racing is restricted to 1954 and earlier cars and '56 and earlier Ford trucks. The event is hosted by the members of the Four Ever Four Cylinder Club, who have been racing in the past since 1954. Some of these club members can still remember the days when drag racing 4-bangers, flatheads, Nailheads, and early small-block mills wasn't nostalgic at all. It was just drag racing.

Most of the races of that era were small events, sponsored by the local hot rod clubs and attended by the local cars that were well-known to the other racers as well as to the spectators. Today, even with hundreds of participants from all over the West, that atmosphere still exists when the Antique Nationals brings the past back to Palmdale.