The Buellton Speedway at the Dining Cars Cafe 
One of the more interesting ideas proposed to Mullen’s came in 1950. It didn’t involve the dining cars, but the property behind them, although it held promise for improving business at the diner.
The Lompoc Model T Club, along with some Buellton race drivers persuaded Mullen’s to lease them his land for an oval race track. The club had been sanctioning races in Lompoc since 1936 building race tracks where ever they could convince landowners to let them run for a season.
With the return of the young war veterans, the old T cars fell out of fashion as the young bucks started building hot rods out of the 32 and 33 Ford’s with their flathead V-8’s. In addition to the faster cars, series racing had become increasingly popular in California and the T-club wanted to create their own series of central coast tracks. Several of the Buellton boys had been running their cars over to Lompoc so they were happy to participate in the development of a track in their own backyard.
From this grandstand view the Dining Cars are in the upper right side of the photo. The straight line running across about the top third of the picture is Highway 101. This location is about a mile north of Buellton on the west side of the highway in Santa Barbara County, California. You may be able to find it on Google Earth.
We're not done yet so stick around![This message has been edited by the poor mans museum (edited 03-11-2006).]
