September 6, 2007 (Los Angeles, CA) --- Edward Conrad, 62, of Gardena, CA, a well-known, respected and long-time sportsman drag racer in Southern California who was a fixture at local tracks, died tonight at Irwindale Speedway, which is located about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Conrad was a machinist. (Photo --- Ed Conrad in his 1983 Mustang).
One of Conrad's friends, Al Murawski, of Long Beach, CA, and also a regular at the tracks of the area, and known nationally, too, said that Conrad apparently suffered a heart attack while "staging", or preparing to start, his 1983 Ford Mustang on the starting line for the closely-timed competition of a bracket race on the 1/8th mile track which has been created in the parking lot at the Irwindale facility. "All we know for sure is that he was dead before he got to the hospital," Murawski told a reporter. Conrad also owned a 1969 Mustang; his friend Murawski races a 1972 model.
Mike Morgan, a photographer, was at the Irwindale track and and was an eyewitness to the incident. He told SteveParker.com, "I was standing in front of Ed's Mustang waiting to get a burnout shot (photo). When it seemed to be taking a little too long for him to pull in, I looked to see what he was doing. I could see he was in some distress. I went to see if he was ok, and just as I reached the door, the car took off. As I leaped out of the way, I tried to hit the cut-off switch, but couldn't reach it. He went down the track wide open in first gear, against the K-rail (where I had been standing) until near the end of the track where it nosed in to the K-rail and stayed there, with tires blazing and engine screaming. The safety crew pulled Ed from the car, removed his helmet, and began CPR. Doctors at Arcadia Methodist Hospital also attempted to revive him. He was a hell of a nice guy who died doing the only thing he really cared about. I guess it wouldn't be a bad way to go out."
Conrad's sister, Rebecca Robinson, told SteveParker.com that he left behind two sisters, Rebecca Robinson and Marianne Reich, and he had three children, Steven Conrad, Kimberly Conrad, Edward Conrad Jr., and five grandchildren, along with many other close family members.
"Big Willie" Robinson, co-founder and co-president of the International Brotherhood of Street Racers, told SteveParker.com that he had known Conrad for "30, maybe even 40 years. Ed was one of the original street racers, and one of the original members of the Brotherhood. And not only was he a devoted street racer, but he was also very devoted to saving Brotherhood Raceway. He came to all the events from our earliest days, and he was very close to both my wife, Tomiko, and myself. Ed was also an excellent machinist, and he could work on anything and everything where he worked at Big George's 'Hot Rods and Harleys' ".
Conrad was part of the huge sportsman racing classes of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), tens of thousands of amateur racers who participate at hundreds of race tracks around the nation for the fun and excitement of the competition, not for any potential "big money" paydays or some sort of magazine or TV exposure.
While the NHRA, which was recently sold for near $130 million to HD Partners, promotes their professional drivers as All-American and wealthy celebrities (such as 14-time Funny Car class champion John Force, whose family has participated in a popular cable reality show), the sportsman classes are considered by many to be "the heart and soul" of the sport of drag racing, according to one racing industry analyst.
"Racers like Conrad are the true shade-tree mechanics, the real hot rodders, the kind of people who started the sport of drag racing in the desert and then the airport runways of Southern California after World War Two. They'll trailer their beloved race car for two days and 500 miles to some small-town race track to participate in a few events which might last less than a minute all told over a weekend," according to veteran auto and racing industry journalist and analyst Steve Parker. "And they'll usually wind up 'eating' all their expenses, too. The fun comes not just in prepping and racing their cars, but in spending that time with friends and relatives."
"He was one of the guys, one of the people you'd expect to see at the local track," said one bracket racer who competed against Conrad many times over the years at places such as Lions Drag Strip, Orange County International Raceway and Brotherhood Raceway in the LA Harbor area. "I like to think he made me a better driver by our competing against each other".
Irwindale Speedway is best-known to many racing fans nationally as home to a 1/2 mile oval track which draws some of the top names in the oval racing sports, including NASCAR star Tony Stewart. The track management established the 1/8-mile dragstrip, which is sanctioned by the NHRA, in answer to the huge demand for such tracks by sportsman drag racers of all ages, and in an attempt to help get some of the area's huge numbers of illegal street racers off the public roads and on a safe and professionally-run track.
To see the WHITTIER DAILY NEWS newspaper coverage of this story, please click anywhere on this line.
To read Irwindale Speedway's statement regarding Ed Conrad's death, click anywhere on this line.
Becky, I just let Mitch Waer know about Ed.
Contact me at [email protected]
Jayne Osborne
Posted by: Jayne | September 08, 2007 at 09:46 AM
Hey I used to live next door to ed when i was 5 ... I'm sorry to hear about his death ... Hope you and the rest of your family are doing ok...
Posted by: melissa hibert | September 09, 2007 at 10:21 PM
We raced with Ed from 1988 until recently. He will be missed. He was definitely one of the true racers that would help ANYONE. Our thoughts and prayers go out.
Posted by: Erik and Jennifer Silvey | September 10, 2007 at 03:24 PM
Thanks to everyone who contributed to our understanding of what happened on the race track that night. Obviously, a lot of people will miss Ed Conrad, and his favorite sport will miss him, too.
Posted by: Steve Parker | September 10, 2007 at 08:07 PM