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View Winners → Irwindale hosts popular X Games for first time
Arts Aug 07, 2013
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By SHEL SEGAL
As X Games Los Angeles 2013 made its way to downtown Los Angeles and the Irwindale Event Center, event center organizers are just pleased that it made its way out to the San Gabriel Valley.
Doug Stokes, vice president of communications for the Irwindale Event Center, said the place has come a long way since the old ownership under the name Toyota Speedway of Irwindale filed for bankruptcy.
“We are re-establishing the track after the former operators went Chapter 7 almost two years ago,” Stokes said. “It wiped out the 2012 NASCAR season, but we’ve recovered from that. We’re halfway through the 2013 NASCAR season right now.”
Stokes said the new management gave the track a rebirth of sorts, so now it’s not just a race track anymore.
“The new management decided to give the place a new name,” he said. “We do a lot of events other than just NASCAR. That kind of helped and the fact that we’ve done drifting for many years now, about nine or 10 years. A lot of the people who were involved with global rally cross knew about this place. Guys who were involved with Gymkhana knew about it.”
He added it was necessary for the X Games operators to get out of downtown for certain events because of the logistics.
“They came to look at it here because in downtown Los Angeles, closing off Figueroa Street was just a bear last year,” Stokes said. “They saw this was a good place to put this 385-foot jump ramp, this huge structure that takes away the entire front straightaway of the track, which is difficult to place downtown, as well. Then you have to build some grandstands to look at it. So they came out here and saw what we have and it went from there. It’s a whole city they put in here. There’s a lot of faith they put in the management we have here.”
In addition, Stokes said the publicity the city of Irwindale is getting from the X Games is priceless.
“The kind of exposure we’re getting here is tremendous,” he said. “They can say, ‘I just drove 20 miles from Los Angeles and I come to this place where you can do a lot of different things.’ We’re real pleased with that. I know that the city is real happy. They use that name Irwindale on television. It’s helped out a lot.”
(Shel Segal can be reached at ssegal@beaconmedianews.com).
