Forum Activity for @tmc-chase

Racing History Minute - 1970 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

Clem Proctor won the preliminary Permatex 200 LMS race on Saturday, January 17.

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Post-race report about Foyt win following his bad Riverside wreck 5 years earlier. (The wreck was in 1965 vs. 1966 as reported in the article.) Note too Parnelli Jone's one-fingered salute to Big Bill France following the controversy about his Firestone tires and top qualifying run.

Racing History Minute - 1970 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

Despite having his pole win taken away - seemingly based on arbitrary ruling, Parnelli Jones opted to race anyway.

Racing History Minute - 1970 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

One surprising and unexpected entrant was for Swedish wife-mother-model-racer Anita Liden. She had never driven a stock car or even on any American roads, yet she supposedly planned to qualify for the GN race.

In the end, however, she did not participate in the race. I can't find much more info on her. I'm unsure if she even landed a car for the race - much less attempted practice and qualifying for it.

Racing History Minute - 1970 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

As NASCAR entered the 1970s, some old issues from the 60s remained. Many drivers contemplated skipping Riverside because of new language in NASCAR's entry form. To avoid the risk of another driver walk-out as happened at Talladega in 1969, NASCAR added language requiring car owner entrants to guarantee their car would race - regardless of its driver. Unsigned entry forms or altered ones would be declined.

But as was generally the case, Big Bill got his way. In the end, all the owners and drivers relented and submitted valid entry forms.

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Racing History Minute - 1970 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

Race program

And the 1970 Riverside race is the last one I found available at the Henry Ford Arte House as an on-line photo collection. But what a doozy. Almost 900 photos available!

http://thehenryford.artehouse.com/perl/collection.pl?collectionID=2838&productTypeID=62

Pole winner Dan Gurney in his Ray Nichels built and Petty Enterprises fielded Superbird

Driver and later media guy Sam Posey

HURST, I tell ya its HURST

Petty put a smile on the faces of the Ford brass when he won his debut with them at Riverside in 1969. I'm sure Plymouth hoped for the same results from its debut with the Superbird and RP's return. Alas they'd have to wait until February at Daytona.

The Nord Krauskopk / Harry Hyde team installing a new powerplant into Harry Hyde's ride.

A.J. - "Yeah this was worth coming back here after that accident in 65"

updated by @tmc-chase: 01/18/17 01:37:34PM

Racing History Minute - 1970 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

A nice chronology at Randy Ayers Modeling Forum about Buddy Young including a couple of pics from the 1970 Riverside race.

http://www.randyayersmodeling.com/modelingforum/viewtopic.php?p=560268&sid=09753614e1cf2fd4491033fb98d9eb9f

And apparently this photo is what was left of Jim Cook's car after his awful accident. From Trackforum.com's Old Racing Scrapbooks section.

Racing History Minute - 1970 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

Race report from Daytona Beach Morning Journal

Racing History Minute - 1970 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

Two short video segments. A few race highlights - and a clip of Buddy Young's tremendous series of flips. No sound to either - you'll have to provide your own southern California beach music.

Racing History Minute - 1969 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

Found updated link for photos from Henry Ford Arte House. I believe same collection is at both places: HFAH site and Flickr.

http://thehenryford.artehouse.com/perl/collection.pl?productTypeID=62&collectionID=2836&pgNumber=1&seeAllImages=1&sortBy=createdDate

Racing History Minute - 1969 Motor Trend 500 - Riverside Raceway

Stock Car Racing History

A.J. Foyt celebrated his birthday at Riverside following his pole win.

Interesting also to read of NASCAR's clean-shaven and short hair policy. Guessing folks like Chocolate Myers, Greg Moore, Dick Brooks, Tim Richmond and others would have had a problem with that in the years to come. Curious the origin of the policy. Perhaps NASCAR was trying to separate itself to the right politically away from the rising tide of vocal protests against Vietnam - including many who sported long hair and beards in that era.