Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post: A Day at Riverside Raceway, circa 1958 Continue reading the Original Blog Post
Thanks for posting. Not all of the film is Riverside International Raceway. I grew up in Riverside spent a lot of time at the raceway in the mid 70s until they closed in 88? I also sold programs there and I don't have one program from there? Saw a lot of races there. Raced my my 67 Camaro there in the early 80s when they had bracket racing. Doug Magnon started the Riverside International Auto Museum On Marlborough Ave in Riverside, Ca in the early 2000's,unfortunately it closed in 2015 when he passed away and the collection was auctioned off. Too bad they closed the raceway for a crappy mall. Have lots of memories of it. Thanks again for posting.
Those were not sprint cars but "Champ" cars. The race is at the mile track at the old California State Fairgrounds in Sacramento. The drivers are the cream of the crop Indy stars racing on the Championship Trail for the National Championship. Far removed from Riverside. The sound of a full field taking the green flag with the booming sound of the big Offies is something that one would never forget if you were lucky enough to be there. 100 laps for 100 miles. Totally awe inspiring.
What's even sadder is because I live about 9 mi from there The mall is fairly dead like every mall. I am just old enough to remember the race track pretty vividly and I'm still shocked that it went down but by that same rationale I can't figure out how they just killed irwindale I mean it was surrounded by two rock quarries and a freeway and some warehouses but I digress. It is a sad thing about living in Southern California, we have quite a vivid car culture starting back in the late 1930s all the way to the current times and yet we have no race tracks other than barona in San Diego and another track in Bakersfield that I've never been to, both aren't exactly close to LA Orange Riverside San Bernardino areas, I think barona is roughly a hundred miles south from the average what you would consider typical Southern California and I think Bakersfield is probably 150 miles from me maybe 120ish from downtown LA It's definitely not close. You're not going to go there on a Wednesday work night and do some passes and then go home that's for sure.
It took me a minute to dig this up I bought this at a local estate sale probably a year or two ago I just thought it was cool Not quite on topic but really close and it is Riverside raceway
Hello, In the film, it shows the straight away and that was the amazing part of our involvement at Riverside Raceway, but in December of 1959. The track had been used for all sorts of sporty car races and that, too was exciting as well. At the time, those sporty cars were beyond our reach as young teenagers. But, who could resist the top drag racers from all over the USA... check out all of the coverage and You Tube Videos of the historic drag race in 1959... J NAKI You Tube Channel... In our high school, we only knew of one friend who had an MG with a home built rack to support two longboards. He wanted to emulate the Hollywood movie actors driving around in a sporty car, yet, he liked surfing, too. The MG was too small to carry 10 foot long surfboards in any way, so he built a homemade rack. So, the sporty car crowd was waning as Long Beach teens and most cars tended to be hot rod sedans. The odd thing was there was one nice Corvette in the whole school, but his dad owned the local Chevy dealership. On one of my first surf trips to the Huntington Beach area in 1959-60, was in an MG roadster. It had our two, 9 foot plus surfboards tied down on a custom bumper/windshield rack made just for this roadster. That was the simple set up to get two guys and longboards to the beach. The chatter all of the way down to the beach on this 40 mile round trip was my friend’s cool MG. Sports cars back then were very popular with the girls and my friend did not let that pass. When people saw us all bundled up sitting under two longboards, they waved and smiled at us, solidifying my friend’s statement about MG roadsters and some drawing power, etc. But, not only did I have to listen to the sports car vs girls lecture, but up popped the story of the fast MG Streamliner that raced at Bonneville with the same basic motor that he had in his sports car. I had no idea about the streamliner and his motor, so I just shook my head and listened to the wind blasting by my ears. (From all directions) I do remember reading about Phil Hill driving, then Stirling Moss, driving for the record setting run. But, we were local SBC hot rod guys with little to no interest in an MG powered streamliner. Ingenuity works in all sorts of ways from little 4 bangers to big time hemi motors. So, I politely listened and learned. Jnaki The waves were large and consistent on that day. To top the day of surfing, I got my first blast of a board in the mouth for many stitches. Then, I had to listen, again, about MG sports cars all the freezing way, (with a towel stuck in my mouth) to our family doctor’s office back in Long Beach, for some repairs. That was a day to remember. I had no complaints as it was my only way to get to the beach and go surfing at the time. On another day, it was a longer trip down to San Onofre State Beach. Back then in 1960, it was not a state beach, but a private club, only for members. (on the huge northern Camp Pendleton complex) We were not members, but my friend was an ex-Marine with credentials. He was able to get us on the military base with his legal bumper sticker and I.D. It was one of those odd sights, even though we had two surfboards tied to his custom rack on the small MG roadster. That was the coolest thing, as we drove into the Basilone Rd. entrance, the Marine guard waved and saluted us as we just drove by. The Marine sticker on the bumper, proved our Marine status and we drove anywhere on the base...YRMV Yes, it was a draw in the parking lot because no one else had two long boards almost as long as this little MG sitting there as we were changing.
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