45 degree Banked Curve / Airways Golf Course
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45 degree Banked Curve / Airways Golf Course
I haven't been in Fresno since I was a kid but for a while my Mom worked as a food waitress at the Airways Golf Course's Coffee Shop. Every Sunday my Dad and and I would go for pancakes. He loves his short stack! Anyway, the first time we drove out there I couldn't believe how steep that banked curve was as you approached the golf course. I thought the car would fall off that thing as we rounded the bend. Of course I was about 8 years old so what did I know? I can't remember the name of the street but I'll never forget that first drive on it.
When I got to be a teenager and needed to drive out to Clovis or Sunnyside drive-in, I would always make sure I took that steeply banked road and go as fast as I dared. I loved to drive it in my 1967 Triumph Spitfire (and it was red too). I wonder if there was ever any serious wrecks on that thing as I think many of us had the same idea!.
When I got to be a teenager and needed to drive out to Clovis or Sunnyside drive-in, I would always make sure I took that steeply banked road and go as fast as I dared. I loved to drive it in my 1967 Triumph Spitfire (and it was red too). I wonder if there was ever any serious wrecks on that thing as I think many of us had the same idea!.
Re: 45 degree Banked Curve / Airways Golf Course
We used to ride our motorcycles and mini bikes in that field. Then a kid got killed out there and they shut it down.
Re: 45 degree Banked Curve / Airways Golf Course
It's gone. There were actually quite a few wrecks there so they changed it. Then a few years ago, even with the safer curve, my cousin's friend crashes his truck into a telephone poll and dies. Maybe it wasn't so much the road, but how fast people tend to drive there.
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Re: 45 degree Banked Curve / Airways Golf Course
I remember the original high banked turn. It was a 90* turn. Peach ran south and you hit the banked 90* turn and you were dead east on Shields. We called it the big banked turn. I used to work at Fresno Kawasaki in the 70's and went around it every day! Fun times on a bike.
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Re: 45 degree Banked Curve / Airways Golf Course
I was a Civil Air Patrol Cadet in the mid 70's and remember going to a meeting with a fellow Cadet in his VW. He hit that turn at 70 MPH and I thought we were gonna go over the edge! Memories!
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Re: 45 degree Banked Curve / Airways Golf Course
Shields used to go all the way throught to Clovis Ave. At the end of the airport runway, intersecting with Shields Ave, was a short barrier. In the mid '50 a fully armed F-86 was taking off utilizing this runway. It clipped the barrier did a wingover and crashed into a house killing the pilot. The airport authority decided the runway was to short so they closed Shields ave, diverted traffic to Dakota and created the bank curve to get back onto Shields.
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Re: 45 degree Banked Curve / Airways Golf Course
I grew up in Tarpey, where Ashlan ended at peach. We used to love riding our bikes on the bank. It didn't look very steep in a car, but it was crazy fun when you were on your stingray bicycle.
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