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Thanks For The Memories
On the July 17th broadcast of RacersReunion.com, I literally made my “broadcast” debut. I was petrified. However, given enough time, I could get very comfortable with these folks.
As a very recent member of this wonderful site, and apparently one of the few whose racing memories are based on the West Coast, I began posting pictures of my brother Steve Colbert who started racing at Saugus Speedway in Saugus, California in the mid sixties. This resulted in a “Ghost Track” segment focusing on Saugus Speedway, and after hearing one rather disparaging old write up on the track, well I got ticked off and responded in kind on the chat site. This resulted in an invitation to “call in”. Oh, okay. What???
But I did, and I probably came off sounding like a fool. But this track, like many that fans grew up at, is very near to my heart. I answered questions (given short notice) as best I could given my fuzzy memory and hopefully defended her as best I could. Saugus Speedway deserves a far greater legacy in racing history than it’s received over its fifty plus years hosting some of the biggest names in NASCAR. Names like Allison, Earnhardt, Elliot and Schrader.
As for me, I’m just honored to have spent so many Saturday nights there over a ten year span.
“Mama” PattyKay invited me to this site. PattyKay and I wrote for the same site a number of years ago and she always gave me confidence and support in what I was doing.
So just ask PattyKay. She knows that the one thing that really gets me going, is to make me mad.
In other words, it’s her fault.
~Carol
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You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until You Lose It
by: Carol Bell
Funny how we only miss something once it’s gone. With NASCAR’s push to the west and the media blitz going into the track formerly known as Infineon, you’d think they’d never held a NASCAR race in California, much less on a road course. But they did.
Richard Petty raced there. So did Junior Johnson, Cale Yarborough, Curtis Turner, and Fireball Roberts. Bobby Allison holds the record for most wins there, six.
In 1983, Richard Childress won his first race there as a car owner. But it wasn’t with Dale Earnhardt, although he was there also. Ricky Rudd, who would begin a phenomenal streak of winning at least one race each year for the next sixteen years, drove Childress’ car. And for ten straight years, beginning in 1971 when R. J. Reynolds became the title sponsor, the first race of the NASCAR season was held there.
She was mean, demanding and a quirky combination of hairpin turns, road course esses, and a long backstretch that saw speeds in excess of 170mph before entering a tight final turn. Tough on brakes, transmissions and engines, it required conscious management by crews and drivers to simply survive the designated number of laps. She was Riverside International Raceway, and she was spectacular.
Opening in 1957, RIR played host to Formula 1, IMSA, Can-Am, SCCA and any other form of motor sports you can think of throughout her illustrious career. The Winston Cup series not only began their season there, but visited in early summer as well. It was the site of the first IROC race, a “best of the best” tour dreamed up by Roger Penske and the indomitable Les Richter who managed her for 23 years with a sure and steady hand.
Attending races at Riverside was much like attending a race today. Motel reservations could be tough to get and advance planning was smart planning. In the early days, with only one set of grandstands curving around the corner of turn six, it was imperative that you purchase your tickets early so as to sit as high up as possible. Oddly enough, with the exception of a portion of the backstretch sloping down under the Champion Bridge going into treacherous turn nine, a large portion of the 2.62 mile track was visible. If you were extremely far sighted, you would be able to catch a glimpse of the cars as they rounded through the banked turn nine, although during the early laps turn nine was often still shrouded in fog. The cars then sprinted along a short straight, crossed the start-finish line and entered the esses. I learned how to corner watching great drivers negotiate those esses. It was poetry.
During her lifetime, she underwent a few modifications including the addition of seats along the esses, and sky suites. The grandstands in turn six were added to, straight up by perhaps another third and we all marveled that not only didn’t they fall over, but we didn’t either being so winded by the steep climb. Of course, today they would be pretty standard. Turn nine, which witnessed many of the more serious crashes was modified, adding a slight dogleg to the left and creating a wider more sweeping turn. With the high speeds generated down the backstretch, many crashes still occurred there, but the severity was greatly reduced. All in all, the track never lost its unique nature and showcased the best in racing.
With the exception of local short tracks, I suppose you could say I grew up at Riverside. It was the only track that hosted the Winston Cup division of NASCAR, and it became as much a tradition for us as Darlington, Daytona or Martinsville is to southern fans. To hear the talk today, you’d think California never experienced the upper echelon of NASCAR prior to Infineon and Fontana. But, next to the great tracks in the south, California was probably the largest “hot bed” of stock car racing in the country, which makes sense because the automobile has been and always will be critical if you live there, thank God.
I guess I’m like many “old time” racing fans, a term which lately has taken on a tone of derision. When I heard that Riverside was closing, I felt like I’d lost a member of the family even though I’d already moved out of state by then. I had visited Sears Point on vacations through the wine country, but wasn’t particularly impressed. So when NASCAR first raced at Sears Point, well I was slightly under whelmed. It just felt like cramming a size nine foot into size five shoe. But credit must be given to Bruton Smith and SMI for making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
The area around Riverside has grown up to become a semi suburb of Los Angeles. There’s a mall and residential development on a portion of the land where Riverside held court for 31 years though some portions remain undeveloped.
But the history will remain and there’s been a grass roots effort to erect a monument celebrating her. Monument or no, you’ll never erase the memories, and I feel certain that if you stand very still, you may feel the ground rumble or catch a whiff of exhaust in the air.
“Riverside’s place in the growth and development of professional sports car racing in the United States cannot be understated. It was the first road course of any consequence in the western U. S. and Riverside remains one of only a handful of tracks in North America to rise above the status of being a mere venue. Riverside helped write the history of motorsports.” ~Les Richter, VP Special Projects, ISC and former President, Riverside International Raceway
~Carol
Email: bellestar63@aol.com
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