Promoter Wins Glick Award

Racing fans all around the country long recognized the man in the cream-colored cowboy hat and the wide smile as flamboyant car owner J.C. Agajanian.

On the West Coast, he was also known as the most energetic and successful race promoter in the area, the man who kept Ascot Park racing alive and in so doing, kept racing alive in Southern California for 25 years.

Agajanian, who died in 1984 at 71, will receive the sixth annual Eagle One-Shav Glick Award for distinguished contribution to motorsports in California at the NASCAR Auto Club 500 Sunday at California Speedway. Agajanian’s sons, Cary, Chris and J.C. Jr. will accept the award during pre-race ceremonies.

“There has never been anyone in Southern California motorsports with the enthusiasm and savvy of Aggie,” said Glick, the longtime racing writer with The Times, for whom the award was named.

“He was a legend at Ascot and other tracks, and at Indy, where the sight of his handsome Stetson brought an immediate response from the folks in the grandstand. Wherever he went, Aggie was an asset to racing and the fans knew it. His legend lives on. It is an honor to salute him with this award.”

Aggie’s cars won two Indianapolis 500s, with Troy Ruttman in 1952 and Parnelli Jones in 1963, and his familiar No. 98 was on Indy cars for more than 40 years. His cars won the 500 pole position three times, setting four track records.

“Whenever we think of the 500, we remember back in the late ‘50s, when the car would come to our house in Baldwin Hills to be loaded onto an open trailer for the trip back to Indy,” recalled J.C. Jr. “All the kids in the neighborhood would come running to our place and we’d climb in the car. It was really thrilling, a red, white and blue roadster with No. 98 on its sides. We were too young to go to Indy back then. Our mom wouldn’t let us out of school.

“The biggest thrill we ever had at Indy was when the yellow shirts [Indy volunteer staff] came up to our seats in the penthouse and took our mom, my sister and my two brothers, down through the tunnel and up into Victory Circle just as Parnelli came rolling off the track in 1963. Then, to hear the crowd yelling and cheering for my dad. It was almost as if he won the race, the way they followed him with their cheers when he walked down the track. What memories he brings back. It’ll be wonderful to salute him again at Fontana.”

Agajanian also promoted 250 U.S. Auto Club events, mostly in California. Among them were midget races, such as the Turkey Night Grand Prix; USAC championship races at fairground tracks, such as Pomona, Sacramento and San Jose, and hundreds of motorcycle races. He also was responsible for keeping the Pikes Peak Hill Climb alive.

Ascot Park, the centerpiece of his racing empire, closed on Thanksgiving in 1990 with a Turkey Night Grand Prix.

In 1992 he was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Previous Glick award winners include Dan Gurney, Wally Parks, Parnelli Jones, Rick Mears and Les Richter.

Judges included national and California motorsports writers and track executives. Other nominees were drag racer John Force, supercross rider Jeremy McGrath, off-road racer Ivan Stewart and car owner-promoter Roger Penske.