What Buster Couch was to the NHRA national event tour, iconic starter Larry Sutton was to Irwindale Raceway, Orange County, and especially Lions Drag Strip: the undisputed boss on the starting line, fair-minded but tough as he presided over Southern California tracks in drag racing's golden era.

It wasn't just that Sutton had the best seat in the house as racing history unfolded before him; he was a part of it, too, driving almost continuously from his teens to age 52. "I loved driving, and I loved being on the starting line," he says, "and it truly was the best of both worlds."

Sutton rode his bike to Lions to hand out time slips when he was 13, became the starter at 16, and prowled the line until the day the track was shut down. When Lions' gates closed forever in late 1972, Sutton shifted to Irwindale and Orange County, working wherever the bigger race was, and eventually he was flipping the switch at Seattle, Fremont, and all the big West Coast tracks.

What Buster Couch was to the NHRA national event tour, iconic starter Larry Sutton was to Irwindale Raceway, Orange County, and especially Lions Drag Strip: the undisputed boss on the starting line, fair-minded but tough as he presided over Southern California tracks in drag racing's golden era.

It wasn't just that Sutton had the best seat in the house as racing history unfolded before him; he was a part of it, too, driving almost continuously from his teens to age 52. "I loved driving, and I loved being on the starting line," he says, "and it truly was the best of both worlds."

Sutton rode his bike to Lions to hand out time slips when he was 13, became the starter at 16, and prowled the line until the day the track was shut down. When Lions' gates closed forever in late 1972, Sutton shifted to Irwindale and Orange County, working wherever the bigger race was, and eventually he was flipping the switch at Seattle, Fremont, and all the big West Coast tracks.

And he drove almost the entire time. "I raced at Lions before I was old enough to have a license and drove my first blown dragster at 16," Sutton says. That was 1959. "Then it was a blown-fuel Chrysler, and it just branched off from there to almost any category you can name. In those days, you could always find a ride." He drove, among other things, an A/GS, a blown-fuel Corvette, front-motor Jr. Fuel cars, an injected-nitro Funny Car, the "Joint Venture" dragster in both Comp and Pro Comp, Top Alcohol Dragsters – just about everything but Pro Stockers.

Sutton didn't just compete at some events and run the starting line at others - he did both at the same time. "At Orange County or wherever I was working, I'd see the car come up to the lanes, transfer my duties to my backup, get in, and make the run," he says. "There'd be a minibike waiting to take me back to the starting line, and the total time lost on the line was minimal. Most people probably never noticed."

The years of standing on the starting line, black hat pulled low, while every big name from California and around the country blasted off on either side of him paid off countless times when Sutton climbed behind the wheel. "I was first off the line probably 99.9 percent of the time, because I knew what I was looking for," he says. "Nothing was going to be a surprise. Watching that Tree over and over and over and over, there was never any thought of what was going to happen when I got up there. I think a lot of people have too many things on their mind."

Sutton's greatest success driving came the PDA Meet at Orange County in 1978, just a year after he renewed his Top Fuel license, when he drove the Circuit Breaker dragster to victory at one of the last 32-car Top Fuel races ever contested. He also won the Nitro Championships there that year, and closed his driving career with a pair of Division 7 event titles in Jerry Darien and Ken Meadows' TA/D in the early 1990s.

"From Day One, I saw older guys who should have quit and didn't," Sutton says. "In some cases, it was a bad situation where they really should have quit. I always said if it ever got to the point where I couldn't do it anymore or didn't enjoy it, I'd quit, and in 1995 Jerry and I decided to part ways. I wouldn't have missed driving any of those cars for the world, but it was time. I was done. I got home and my wife asked me what my next ride was going to be. I told her I would never drive another race car, and I didn't. There was a little withdrawal for about six months, but the fun was out of it."

Today, Sutton, 67, lives in Cedar City, Utah, and is a contract rep for Goodrich, the largest landing-gear company in the world. He camps, fishes, and travels with his wife, Pam, who worked for NHRA in one capacity or another for 46 years. She worked in the tower at Lions while Sutton assumed numerous roles in the early years – even ambulance attendant. "I only missed one day, ever," he says. "When we ran four at a time, I'd be at the top end, up on one of those framework platforms, calling out the winner because you couldn't time all four cars at once. I actually used one of those old World War II crank-box telephones to communicate with the tower. There'll never be another place like Lions. Every single Top Fuel race there was like the best ever. There were just so many cars, week after week, you can't even remember them all, but it's why Lions is still known to so many people today."

After 16 years at the beloved Long Beach, Calif., facility, late on the night of Dec. 2, 1972, Sutton sent the last two drivers on their way, Jeb Allen and Carl Olson in The Last Drag Race Top Fuel final. They weren't the last pair down the track, however – that would be Sutton and assistant starter Bill Keys – in an outhouse.

"It was late, and nobody wanted to leave," Sutton recalls. "We were having a little champagne in the photographer's area at the right of the starting line when a car club from the area came up dragging this outhouse on wooden skids and asked if anybody wanted to take a ride. I'd had a couple, it was the end of an era, so I figured what the hell. We were only going to go a little ways down the track anyway. I guess the guys in the car had been drinking, too, because we got up to about 65 mph before Bill cut the rope. We spun around and ended up against the left guardrail, right in the lights – without a splash, I might add."

Breaking the speed limit in an outhouse may have been the only impulsive decision Sutton ever made at Lions or anywhere. Like any good NFL ref or major league umpire, he knew he'd done his job well when no one ever noticed he was there. But he'd give anybody, even Don Prudhomme or Don Garlits, the ol' hand-across-the-throat shut-off signal if the situation called for it.

"You really have to be on top of everything," Sutton says. "Racers don't always have their heads on straight when they're up there, and as the starter you have to watch out for them. You can't just be a button-pusher. I've seen it all. I was there when 'Big Daddy' had his accident [March 1970], and I've seen a lot worse things than that."

Sutton has been a part of the carnage, too. "You wouldn't believe how many times I've been blown up," he says. "The whole side of a blower hit me in the jaw one time. A flywheel broke my ribs. A guy called me over to ask me something one time, then slammed the door and staged. Guess where my fingers were? And he was about to take off. I've been hit dead center in my back by the front fender of a tow car for a bike that was making a single – I thought – in the other lane."

All told, Sutton's right leg has been broken three times, his left once. He's also had a broken arm, broken foot, broken ribs, broken fingers, and has spent more than a month in the hospital recovering from being hit by cars and parts. Yet he was never injured in a driving career that began in the 1950s and lasted 40 years. "I don't regret dedicating my life to drag racing one bit," Suttons says. "I loved every bit of it, and I'd like to think that if I hadn't been there, a few people might not be here today."

 

 

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