It came as something of a surprise to me when I realized that the military has played a very large role in the postwar development of motorsport. I know it sounds like a bizarre statement, yet history seems to bear it out.
The catalyst for this revelation came to me recently, when my family and I traveled south to San Diego, California, to take in the Coronado Speed Festival, put on by Steve Earle’s General Racing, Ltd. This event, now in its 10th year, is a full historic race meeting held on San Diego’s Coronado Island at the U.S. Navy’s North Island Air Station. Once a year, the Navy closes down its runways, moves around some K-rail, and lets hundreds of historic racecars and thousands of interested spectators hold a full weekend of race meetings, smack in the middle of the naval air force’s headquarters for the Pacific Fleet.
