Oct 27, 1973: The IROC series debuts

On October 27, 1973, Jay Signore's International Race of Champions - IROC - series debuts with a pair of races at the famed Riverside International Raceway.

The series - conceived by Roger Penske and the late Les Richter - featured 3 races in 2 days over October 27-28, 1973 and a 4th and champion-deciding race at Daytona during 1974 Speedweeks. The field included 12 superstar drivers driving matching Porsche 911 Carerras.

Source: Crunch22.blogspot.com

This pbase gallery includes several good photos from those early IROC races.

http://www.pbase.com/slidevalve911rsr/911rsr_factory_cars_iroc_misc_photos

Some video footage of those first couple of races. The video clip is primarily of driver introductions, but some highlights (or lowlights for some drivers) are included as part of the intros.

Race report from Daytona Beach Morning Journal :

Race 1:

Fin	Driver	Series
1	Mark Donohue	SCCA
2	Bobby Unser	USAC
3	Peter Revson	SCCA
4	George Follmer	SCCA
5	Denny Hulme	FIA
6	A.J. Foyt	USAC
7	Richard Petty	NASCAR
8	Roger McCluskey	USAC
9	David Pearson	NASCAR
10	Gordon Johncock	USAC
11	Bobby Allison	NASCAR
12	Emerson Fittipaldi	FIA

Race 2:

Fin	Driver	Series
1	George Follmer	SCCA
2	David Pearson	NASCAR
3	Emerson Fittipaldi	FIA
4	Peter Revson	SCCA
5	A.J. Foyt	USAC
6	Bobby Unser	USAC
7	Bobby Allison	NASCAR
8	Denny Hulme	FIA
9	Gordon Johncock	USAC
10	Richard Petty	NASCAR
11	Roger McCluskey	USAC
12	Mark Donohue	SCCA

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Schaefer: It's not just for racing anymore.
updated by @tmc-chase: 10/27/17 10:02:18AM

Wish they could have continued with the Porsches but it would have been too expensive I guess? Very cool series that we all wish was still around. Strange that NASCAR didn't step in to rescue the series in 2006 given how good it made their drivers look.

Those early Porsches had odd handling that probably gave the NASCAR guys a lot of headaches but David Pearson seems to have picked it up pretty quick. He genuinely was the best NASCAR driver of his era, possibly ever. I'm not sure how expensive it would have been to continue in the Porsches, I'm sure the manufacturer was picking up most of the bill. I think they went to the Camaro immediately afterward and that probably didn't give anyone an advantage. They were closer to Trans-Am than Winston Cup at that point, and European drivers were used to driving powerful sports cars.I wish it could continue, but they have an invitational European race that seems to come pretty close. Several types of cars and drivers from all of the major disciplines. It doesn't get a lot of publicity and I forget what it's called, but the NASCAR guys seem to hold their own. I think the rallye drivers usually take the trophy, which is not all that surprising considering the car control those guys have mastered.

True but that's what you need in a way. A car that's not quite as heavy as a stocker and chuckable and nimble enough to reward a road racer's skillset too, otherwise the odds are too heavily in favour of the stock car guys as it later became.

The European/global ROC is a good thing but there have been no NASCAR champions in it the past two years. Keselowski even tweeted last year that they (ROC) didn't like them (NASCAR drivers) or something along those lines.

I guess they don't like having mighty F1 world champions humiliated by guys that turn left, eh??

One of the darndest displays of money grubbing I ever witnessed in my years around stock car racing took place at the concluding IROC event of the 4-race 1984 season. The date was August 11, 1984 at Michigan.

I had a pass to be on top of one of the infield pit road suite viewing platforms. I was with 7-Eleven at the time and I think it was a Coca-Cola suite, one of our big suppliers. Cale Yarborough, whose Cup car was sponsored by Hardee's had a big associate sponsorship from Coke at the time.

Cale was leading the series that year after 3 races and the championship would pay $150,000. Cale's wife, Betty Jo was on the same viewing platform within earshot.

Cale led most of the race with Neil Bonnett tucked on his back bumper. Neil made a move for the lead coming out of turn 2 on the final lap and they ran a heck of a side-by-side duel down the backstretch. Neil finally completed his pass coming out of turn four to win the race.

Although Cale had just earned $150,000 for clinching the 1984 IROC championship, Betty Jo was screaming at the top of her lungs that Neil had "cost them" another Hardee's franchise. Cale was always famous as a car owner for being a stingy tightwad, but I guess it ran in the whole family. It was a shameless display of greed.

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"

Based on several of the views that Keselowski has expressed this year, I don't consider his to be an informed opinion. I like him as a person, and I like that he's willing to speak his mind instead of toeing the NASCAR line. But I think he's at least one beer short of a six-pak.

The Wikipedia page for the Race Of Champions is convoluted and hard for me to read, but it appears as though the F1 stars should be used to getting beaten. I don't recognize the names of any of the winners, they mostly seem to be rally and DTM guys.

From what I've seen of those races, it's a reasonably fair competition. It would be nice if they could extend it over a few days and use full racetracks, but then you run into the scheduling problems that IROC had. If we wanted to determine an overall US champion, the races are already in place - Sebring - Daytona 500 - Indy 500. You'll no longer have identically prepared cars, but you'll have a fair idea of who's the best anyway.

Well, I guess when you've been through the hardships he and Betty Jo have been through before Cale hit the bigtime, you get to be like that with money.

Well, it's no surprise that most of the European motorsport fraternity looks down upon NASCAR so he just played it off that generalization.

It would indeed be nice if we could have drivers actually running in each others disciplines over a fixed number of races but in today's tightly controlled racing world, it is a fantasy.