Hot rods and hot jobs: Sonoma’s drag-racing Norrboms

If it’s Wednesday night in summer, there’s probably at least one Norrbom at Sonoma Raceway’s drag strip.|

Almost every Wednesday summer night for the past 50 years, amateur drag racers from all over the North Bay have converged on the raceway at the intersection of Highways 37 and 121 to pit their cars, trucks and motorcycles against others for bragging rights – and sometimes modest prizes or trophies – as the week’s best-in-class.

And for 35 years of Wednesday Night Drags, somebody named Norrbom – and often more than one – has been on the strip.

The name is a familiar one in Sonoma, where the clan has lived long enough to have a road named after them, Norrbom Road extending north into the Mayacamas from First Street West. There was also a fire in October, 2017, called the Norrbom Fire – appropriately, as for generations, the Norrbom men have almost all been Sonoma Valley firemen.

Bob Norrbom, Jr., a battalion chief with Sonoma Valley Fire & Rescue Authority, says he started the family drag racing tradition when, in the mid-1980s, he and a couple friends headed down to the track – then known as Sears Point, now the Sonoma Raceway.

“Some friends and I started building cars in high school; we were in auto shop or metal shop and we’d go down there to see who had the fastest car,” said Bob Norrbom Jr., now 52. “It took us off the street and out to the drag strip.”

Pretty soon his father, Bob Norrbom Sr. – who initially scoffed at the idea – took an interest as well. He has an auto repair shop in Glen Ellen, in a faded blue sheet metal garage on Horn Avenue. Now, 35 years later, it’s packed to the rafters with trophies won at the “drag city” down on south Arnold Drive, burning up that quarter mile.

But it doesn’t end there. Bob Sr. races the same dark green 1969 Pontiac Gran Prix that Bob Jr. started his own drags career with. Junior now races an orange 1963 Chevy Nova.

Bob Jr.’s oldest son, Mike – a firefighter and paramedic with the Napa Fire Department – favors a 1970 Camaro, which he’s been racing since 2012. And younger son Matt is learning the family tradition in his gray 2000 Chevy Silverado pickup, so far competing in the high school bracket on Wednesday nights (he graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in June, so he’s still eligible for the bracket until the end of 2019). Matt is going to SRJC for fire classes and is already a volunteer with the SVFRA.

And while Bob Sr. was never a fireman, per se, he was on the board of the Glen Ellen Fire District for more than 40 years, often as chair.

On a recent Wednesday, Matt Norrbom won his competition on his third outing, taking the High School division; that same night, Bob Norrbom, Jr. came in second in the Comp Rod division. Bob Sr. usually enters and often wins the Jackpot Division – a competition whose entry fee is an additional $10 ante that’s split between the top winners.

Mike Norrbom was out of town that night, but his father says he’s the best racer in the family so far, having won the national high school competition in Las Vegas in 2013. “Both my sons really like to turn wrenches,” said Bob Jr. “We’re a bunch of gearheads – firemen by day, gearheads by night.”

Entering the Wednesday Night Drags is a flat $25, but it doesn’t seem to be a barrier – as between 100 and 180 racers show up every week, from April to the end of August, said drags manager Kyle Seipel. It runs in the Seipel family, too: his mother Georgia Seipel ran the Fremont drag strip in the 1980s, and preceded Kyle as the Sonoma Raceway drags manager from 1988 to 2017. “My father Ted has also raced for the past 60 years,” said Seipel.

From the observation offices overlooking the starting line, Seipel keeps track of the competitors as their times flash on the computer screen, triggered every 500 feet, from starting line to finish, by a system of computer timers. But the thing of it is – and it takes a bit of getting-used to – it’s not a race that pits any car against another, but the car against itself.

The first part of the afternoon – gates open at 4 p.m. – is spent with trials. Competitors line up to wait for the lights to tick down – yellow, yellow, yellow, green. Many drivers hit the pedal on the third yellow, because the closer the reaction time is to 0.00 the better.

In the trials – essentially, practice runs – the drivers speed down their lane, keeping track of their times at intervals and, most importantly, at the finish line. The top MPH is also noted, but that’s really not the point: It’s how close the driver comes to the time he guesses, or “dials in,” for his overall run.

For the competition, the drivers write the dial-in time on their windscreen, whatever it is – Bob Jr.’s is 10.98 this Wednesday, last week it was 10.88 – and that’s their target: the closer they finish to that time, the better their chances of taking the completion.

If a driver finishes before the dial-in time posted on his windscreen, he “breaks out” and is disqualified for going too fast. Similarly, if his reaction time is too fast, below the 0.00 mark, he (or she – there are women racing in almost every class) has left the starting line before the green light glows, he “red lights” and may be disqualified.

A slow reaction time, often only more than a second, or a finish that’s slower than the dial-in, and the driver drives home to try again next week.

“The most important thing in drag racing actually is right here.” said Bob Jr., watching the action between his time trials. “Most races are won and lost on the starting line.”

On this Wednesday night, Aug. 28, none of the Norrboms make the top two in their class. It’s the last Wednesday Night Drags of the year, but when the event starts up again in April, 2020, you can bet there’ll be a Norrbom – or two, or three. or maybe even four – on the track at Sonoma Raceway.

Contact Christian at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.