Riverside International Raceway
| Riverside International Raceway | |
|---|---|
| Nickname | The dusty place |
| Location |  Riverside, California
|
| Broke ground | January 1957 |
| Opened | September 1957 |
| Closed | June 1989 |
| Demolished | 1990 |
| Owner | (1983-1989) Fritz Duda |
| Operator | (1983-1989) Fritz Duda |
| Construction cost | $625,000 |
| Architect | William L. Duquette |
| Former names | None |
| Major events | |
| Seating capacity | |
| Dimensions | |
| Track shape | Road Course |
| Track length | Varies, track designs are below |
| Track banking | Turn 9 - 10 degrees° |
Riverside International Raceway (Sometimes known as RIR or Riverside Raceway) was a race track or road course in Riverside, California. A driver died during the first weekend after the opening and several more drivers perished while the track was in operation from 1957 to 1989.
The track was built to accommodate several different races. By closing off certain sections of the track, the route drivers had to follow could be altered. The three options on Riverside Raceway were the long course (3.27 miles or 5.25 km), the short course (2.5 miles or 4.16 km), and the NASCAR (2.5 Mi. or 4.16 km) course. The original racetrack had a 1.1 mile backstretch from 1957 to 1968. When the track was redesigned in 1969, turn 9 was made wide and a dogleg was added.
The four courses of Riverside
Before a racing event at RIR, track crews added traffic pylons to close off sections of the track. Track courses are shown in the illustrations below (the 1957 course is in black, while the 1969 course above is in blue).
File:RIR57.jpg The original Riverside course before the 1969 modification complete with the 1.1 mile backstrech |
File:RIRLONG.jpg RIR long course, this track layout is in orange (3.25 Miles or 5.25 km) |
File:RIRNASCAR.jpg RIR NASCAR course, this track layout is in light blue (2.5 miles or 4.16 km) |
File:RIRSHORT.jpg RIR short course, this track layout is in red (2.5 miles or 4.16 km) |
Diagram notes: The long course (shown above before the 1969 version) had the 1.1 mile backstrech. When the 1969 version was built, the dogleg was added as a speed scrubber to reduce speeds when approaching turn 9. The NASCAR course, on the bottom left (light blue) illustration, would not use turn 7. In the short course, the track would use turn 7A rather than 8.
Movies and television
RIR was also a prime spot for movie shoots. Parts of the television shows CHiPs, Simon and Simon,The Rockford Files, Knight Rider, and the HBO program Super Dave Osborne were shot on location at RIR.
RIR was also a location shooting in the following movies: The Love Bug, Roadracers, Fireball 500, On the Beach, Speedway, Stacey, Thunder Alley, Winning, and The Killers.
Many advertisements are also shot at RIR.
Miscellaneous facts
Footage exists of classic races like the 1986 Los Angeles Times Grand Prix in which the Chevy Corvette of Doc Bundy hit the Ford Probe of Lyn St. James and the Jaguar of Chip Robinson at Turn 1. St. James' car caught fire and Chip Robinson nearly cartwheeled into the crowd. Fortunately, St. James survived the flames and Robinson escaped uninjured within the track bounds.
Sadly, Riverside was the site of the only fatality in IMSA GTP history. In the 1983 Times Grand Prix, Rolf Stommelen's Joest-constructed Porsche 935 lost its rear wing at the Dogleg and hit two freeway-type barriers sending it into a horrific roll at Turn 9.
When the racetrack was proposed in the mid 1950s, Riverside International Motor Raceway (as it was called at the time) was planned to ultimately be 5.0 miles long, but the club extension was never constructed and the track's final length (after Turn 9 was adjusted in 1969 to a 10 degree banked sweeper) was 3.3 miles.
Of the entire road course races run at RIR, there was at least one that was run in a counter-clockwise direction sometime in the 1960s.
ESPN taped the June 12, 1988, Budweiser 400 race at RIR and caught racer Ruben Garcia crashing hard off turn 9.
NASCAR lost racer Joe Weatherly at the track in January 1964. For a final tribute, the old version of Riverside Raceway etched on his headstone as a final joke since Joe was a joker.
After 14 years of NASCAR as a driver and later a car owner, Richard Childress won his first NASCAR race in 1983, when Ricky Rudd drove his #3 Piedmont Airlines Chevrolet to victory in the 1983 Budweiser 400k.
From 1981 until 1987, NASCAR's championship race was at Riverside. The USAC Championship Trail also held their season ending race from 1967 to 1969.
Riverside was home to track announcer Sandy Reed and (along with former LA Rams player Les Richter) Roy Hord Jr.
Closure and RIR's transformation into a shopping mall
After former Los Angeles Rams player Les Richter sold the property to Fritz Duda, 1988 would be the final year of racing for Riverside International Raceway. On June 12, 1988, NASCAR held its final race at RIR - a race won by Rusty Wallace (a caution flag was out for Ruben Garcia when he came off Turn 9 and lost control of his car and hit a wall, missing the grandstands). In 1989, after the SCORE International held its last race, the track finally closed its gates after 32 years of racing after Cal-Club racer Mark Verbofsky died and the track ended the way it started: with a dead racer. Fritz Duda turned the "House that Dan Gurney built" into a shopping mall which opened in 1992. The Moreno Valley Mall at Towngate is on the northern end of the former Raceway Property and houses now occupy the southern end of the old racetrack (where Tim Richmond and Dale Earnhardt raced). In a 1994 topographical map, the remains of Riverside's Turn 9 and a wall were still visible. However, today nothing is left of the Riverside International Raceway except for memorabilia from the racetrack. The old Administration Building remained until 2005, when it was torn down to make way for a complex of townhomes.
When Riverside closed in 1988, it followed in the footsteps of Ontario Motor Speedway (in nearby Ontario) which closed in 1980.
In 2003, the remainder of the old Riverside International Raceway was torn up, the sign that was at California 60 and Day Street was removed to make way for a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse. The old Turn 9 of the old track is now home to houses and the legendary site of the old Riverside International Raceway where you could have heard the roar of engines is now a shopper's heaven and houses.
Ironically, in 2003, plans were announced in northern California, near Merced, to build a 3-mile road course with a similar design to the famed Riverside layout, with a major difference in a chicane and Turn 9 (the track will be known as the Riverside Motorsports Park).
Races held at Riverside International Raceway
- The NASCAR Winston Cup Series and Winston West: Motor Trend 500, NASCAR Winston Western 500, and NAPA/Budweiser 400K (The Cup and West series raced together in those races.)
- The CART PPG/Indycar World Series (now Champcar): AirCal 500 / L.A. Times 500 (1981-1983)
- USAC Championship Trail (Indycar) Rex Mays 300 (1967-1969)
- The Los Angeles Times Grand Prix of Endurance
- The 1960 United States Grand Prix
- (Unofficial) 24 hours of Riverside, testing the Chevy Corvair
- IROC
- NHRA drag racing in the mid sixties.
- SCORE International Off Road World Championships, the last one was held in August 1988.
- IMSA and SCCA car races
- Rex Mays 300
References
- Riverside Raceway, Palace Of Speed by Dick Wallen
- Motorsport Memorial entry on Rolf Stommelen (2005), [1]. Retrieved February 1, 2005.
External links
- Riverside International Raceway's Yahoo! Group
- Riverside International Raceway's Picture Pages from Frank Sheffield, a former RIR corner worker
- Dick Wallen's Racing Classics - Contains videos and books related to Riverside Raceway.
- The Riverside Today message board at AtlasF1.com
- The old Riverside Raceway property back in 2002
- NASCAR track history at racing-reference.info