Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the streets are deserted and all eyes glued to the tube. College sports rivalries, such as UC
Berkeley's Cal Bears versus Stanford University's Cardinals and the USC Trojans versus
the UCLA Bruins, are equally fierce.
The roaring IndyCar race takes over the streets of Long Beach, just south of LA, every
April. In San Diego County, Del Mar boasts the state's ritziest horse-racing track, while
LA County's historic Santa Anita Racetrack featured in the classic Marx Brothers movie
A
Day at the Races
and the short-lived HBO series
Luck
.
Surfing first hit California in 1914, when Irish-Hawaiian surfer George Freeth gave
demonstrations at Huntington Beach in Orange County. Today surfing is the coast's
coolest spectator sport, with waves sometimes reaching 100ft at the annual Mavericks In-
vitational competition near Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco.
Extreme sports date back to the 1970s when skateboarders on LA's Santa Mon-
ica-Venice border honed their craft by breaking into dry swimming pools in the backyards
of mansions, as chronicled in the 2005 film
Lords of Dogtown
. Extreme sports deities
Tony Hawk and Shaun White, both professional skateboarders and X Games champs, hail
from San Diego County.
Now an Olympic sport, professional beach volleyball started in Santa Monica in the
1920s. Tournaments are held in SoCal every summer, including at Manhattan Beach in
LA's South Bay and at Huntington Beach in Orange County.
