There are five different ways you can take a car to the races at Del Mar and only one of them requires you to do the driving.

 

While an individual or a group driving their own vehicle(s) is certainly an available option to one and all during the 39 days of the racing season, there also are four other auto ways to get to the seaside track – two of them making their Del Mar debuts this year.

 

The two tried and true ways to be driven onto the Del Mar fairgrounds are cabs and limousines. The new guys on the block are the mobile application transportation services Uber and Lyft.

 

Del Mar is serviced by five different cab companies – Howwe Roll Cab, Orange Cab, San Diego Cab, Silver Cab and Yellow Cab. Additionally, there are two limousine companies that provide deluxe access to the grounds – Breeze Luxury Limo Service and Skye Limousine. (All contact numbers for these companies are listed below.) The cabs and limousines drop their customers at, or very near, the racetrack admission gates. 

 

For Friday’s Opening Day only, Uber and Lyft, the most popular of the many ridesharing applications, will ferry in and out of the Golf Mart parking area east of Jimmy Durante Blvd on the northeast corner of the fairgrounds.  From there, racetrack-bound fans have about three furlongs to navigate to the admission gates, which they can do either by walking or riding a track tram. After Opening Day, the ridesharing companies will have their location shifted to the track’s main lot, south of the main entrance just off of Jimmy Durante Blvd.

 

Uber and Lyft require their riders to use an app on a cell phone or I-pad that determines their location and puts the nearest of their many drivers on alert for a pickup. Payment is made through the app and no cash is required or exchanged in the process, unless a rider chooses to tip his/her driver.

 

All auto companies that service the track will be available starting with Opening Day (beginning at 2 p.m.) when more than 40,000 racing fans are expected to pack the iconic facility which sits 20 miles north of San Diego alongside the blue Pacific.

 

After the track’s opening three-day run from Friday to Sunday, it will settle into its 77th summer season on a Wednesday through Sunday basis for the balance of the meet up to closing day on Monday, September 5, which is Labor Day. First post daily will be at 2 p.m., except in the case of Fridays when 4 p.m. posts prevail minus a further exception of the final two (Aug. 28, Sept. 2) when things get started at 3:30 p.m.