Santa Barbara, a town known for its upscale resorts, stunning beachfront, yoga studio’s, celebrity sightings, and the look more resembling a Mediterranean Riviera than the standard So-Cal beach city is now known for street racing as well. When Mel Stultz and his crew of Oilers CC/MC let the cat out of the bag no one could believe it would actually happen, but somehow those Jersey boys pulled it off and we sure are glad they did, more racing this close to home was great and the fact that we wouldn’t be digging sand out of every crevice for the next few months was an added bonus. A closed down oceanfront street, a courtyard full of customs, a back lot turned into pits, and a pile of vintage hot rods and bikes ready to race made for a great time.

The racing took place all day Saturday, and this time the TROG crew decided to let the overheads play which gave the opportunity to bring the little roadster out and see what it’d do. After a quick drivers meeting racing got started, the first few hours were a little hectic with somewhere around 100 cars and 50 bikes lining up to run, by lunch time the staging line had eased up and it was pretty much a hot lap session for the remaining racers which meant for the most part you could pick your races and call out your buddies for a dual down the strip. Racing went till dusk, and everyone got in as many passes as they wanted, I called it quits in the roadster after 12, figuring that was a good stopping point as nothing had broke yet.

After racing everyone dispersed to one of the parties going on, or hit up downtown to grab some dinner and a drink or two and recap the days events with their buddy’s, by the next day the only signs that the town was overrun by a bunch of greasy hot rodders were all the rubber marks on Cabrillo Boulevard. We’ll be waiting to hear from our pals in the Oilers if the city gives the ok to do it all again next year and hope to be first in line to race when the time comes.