GOOD OLD DAYS:

It all started with a story.

The Costa Mesa Speedway, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, was the product of one man’s dream. Today, Harry Oxley’s family is still keeping it strong.

In speedway racing, competitors ride brakeless motorcycles around a dirt track, taking advantage of its surface in order to slide their bikes into the bends to maintain speed.

The competition is fast and colorful, and has regaled spectators for decades.

“My dad’s partner, Jack Milne, owned a motorcycle shop in Costa Mesa where my dad worked,” Harry’s son, Brad Oxley, said.

“Jack was the 1937 world speedway champion; he won it in London, and 101,000 people saw him win that title. He always told my dad these grand stories about speedway racing in Europe and Australia. He must have been a great storyteller, because it really captured my dad’s imagination.”

So much that Harry packed his son into the family Datsun and drove all around the Southland, seeking the perfect spot to start his own speedway.

They finally arrived at a sleepy little arena on the Orange County Fairgrounds that hosted a handful of rodeos and a horse show each year.

The duo pulled onto the grounds during a sports car rally.

“This must be the place,” Harry told his son.

He and his wife, Marilynn, led the business for decades following their June 1969 debut.

After speedway racing’s heyday in the 1930s, World War II slowed everything to a halt; by the time Harry’s speedway opened more than 20 years later, many motorcycles sat languishing in barns and garages.

“Our first riders started coming down to Costa Mesa and bringing those old bikes out of their barns,” Brad said. “Those guys in 1969 were riding ’40s bikes.”

Because there were no professional bikers then, the atmosphere was very different.

“The whole period of the early ’70s was kind of a freewheeling time, and speedway really reflected that,” Brad said. “It was raucous and wild and unedited, and kind of crazy.”

Harry retired in the mid-1990s, when Brad and his sister, Laurie, began operating it in his stead. Laurie retired in 2005; now Brad, his wife, Jaleen, and their children keep it going.

“We grew up at the races, so it got under our skin and into our blood,” he said. “We still feel like it’s really important to keep the speedway going.”

As part of the ongoing anniversary festivities, the speedway will hold a reunion for past fans, racers, friends and family Sept. 27.

“We’ve had 75,000 laps of racing at the speedway since 1969,” Oxley said.

“It’s not so much a story of just business success as it is a story of a family who succeeded,” Brad said. “My dad and my mom were my and my sister’s heroes.”

CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (949) 494-5480 or at [email protected].