It’s amazing how often in society, despite the passing of decades upon decades of time, items are unearthed that some believed were lost forever and millions of others never even knew to have existed. Unlike the container of letters and items you class buries in the courtyard in grade school, these are the true time capsules of our world, and an item recently placed at auction on eBay is one of particular interest to drag racing historians and longtime fans of the sport.

In the winter of 1964, before there were high tech digital audio recording devices or iPod’s to replay said audio on, a number of races at the famed Lions Dragstrip in Long Beach, California were recorded by Dot Records utilizing electro-voice 664 and 666 microphones, cut on a Scully lathe with variable depth and pitch, and transformed into an album containing authentic dragstrip sounds from the legendary house of speed.

According to the seller, these rare albums were stored away in the 1960’s and were only recently unearthed and offered in limited number to the public, based on the small number of albums still in existence. The albums contain 10 races, recorded live, on each side.

As featured in a number of cases on our Flashback Friday here on DRAGZINE, the Lions Dragstrip was located in aforementioned harbor city of Long Beach in Los Angeles County, and although rated as one of the finest drag strips of the time period, is the greatest quarter mile to have ever existed in the minds of many who lived it.

The track began operations in May of 1955 under the guidance of nine Lions club members of the Long Beach and Los Angeles area and continued for nine and a half seasons, hosting more than three million spectators during that time and more than 200 race vehicles on each of its 40 weekends of racing a year.

While the fabled Lions facility is long gone, the memories that were created there are as alive as the day they occurred, and this rare album that’s available to the public is but another piece of history to add to it’s lore.