Orange County International Raceway [OCIR], the once prize super drag strip formerly located in Southern California, lobbied for 12 years to gain a national event. When Ontario Motor Speedway was sold early in 1981, the door opened.

OCIR’s first national event had more than its fair share of calamities, none of which were limited to power outages, limited pit space and oil, lots of oil. Where there’s oil seeping in drag racing, fire usually follows.

“I think that particular weekend was better named the devastation Nationals,” said Densham, who was one of three drivers eliminated that weekend by parts attrition and the fires that followed.

Orange County International Raceway [OCIR], the once prize super drag strip formerly located in Southern California, lobbied for 12 years to gain a national event. When Ontario Motor Speedway was sold early in 1981, the door opened.

OCIR’s first national event had more than its fair share of calamities, none of which were limited to power outages, limited pit space and oil, lots of oil. Where there’s oil seeping in drag racing, fire usually follows.

“I think that particular weekend was better named the devastation Nationals,” said Densham, who was one of three drivers eliminated that weekend by parts attrition and the fires that followed.

“There were a lot of good cars donated to the Fire Gods that weekend. For whatever reason, this was one of those weekends where everything went wrong,” Densham added.

A fire was a devastating scenario during that era of Funny Car racing. Densham was joined by seasoned veterans such as Billy Meyer and Don Prudhomme.

“During that era we all had that problem where we were on fire at one time or another,” Densham said. “We didn’t have the safety equipment that we all have now, nor did we have the knowledge that we have now. It was a threat at almost every major race that we had. That weekend we made up for any fire we might have missed during the season.”

Densham’s fire followed Meyer’s and preceded Prudhomme’s. Before and after the trio were other less devastating fires.

“We were all a little scared and a little bit stupid, but maybe we’ve learned some things since then,” Densham said. “I know we’re still stupid, but hopefully we’ve learned a little bit more since then.”

On this day, no one was seriously injured. For Densham, that was as valuable as winning the event.

“I think we were very fortunate to get out there with no one seriously injured,” said Densham. “The Safety Safari did their job that day and thankfully no one got hurt. Thankfully it happened to drivers with experience who didn’t panic and make it worse than it could have been.”

The carnage continued two more seasons at OCIR including a devastating explosion for Mike Dunn in 1983. Property development eventually quenched the fire of OCIR permanently in 1983.
 

 

Footage from the 1981 World Finals at OCIR.