Gone But Not
Forgotten: Memories of
(Click to enlarge pictures)
Ah, memories…at
times it seemed I lived out at RIR, almost literally just across the 60 freeway
from my home in Sunnymead (now
Another odd
angle, but here at least I have an explanation: I wanted to get the whole car
in. It was a pretty unique ride at the time: this was the first of the Formula
Russell machines and it was kind of the forerunner to the big spec series of
today. The Jim Russell Driving School had its headquarters here at the time,
and Cal Club adopted FR as a class, if memory serves me correctly. Later they
ended up on the bill with some of the IMSA shows, as well as Can-Am and
Trans-Am. Norm Turley, who later owned an Indy Car team with Ted Prappas driving, once owned and drove one of these machines.
I think perhaps they were meant to be an inexpensive alternative to Formula
Continental or Formula Atlantic but the fields always seemed light. They were
awfully noisy with their Mazda rotary powerplants, that much I can attest!
A Sports 2000 car. And a winner too.
Can't recall the driver's name, but I do know this was generally the S2
everybody ended up chasing. The chassis is a Tiga.
Notice the couple having breakfast in the background; Club racing was like
that, very much a family-kind of thing. Years later I would discover kart
racing was much the same, only lots cheaper…
And here is that same car leading the field
on lap one of a Cal Club Regional event at RIR. This is the view from Turn Six,
looking back toward the Esses, and I usually sat up here because it was the
only place where you could see the entire track, providing you had a good set
of binoculars!
I want to
say this is Formula Ford action we're looking at here, and if it is, that's
likely our own Steven Webb closest to the camera in his Wuf-Wuf
Racing Crossle-Ford. Hubert and Steve were kind
enough to let me tag along at several of their races here and at Willow
Springs. The Crossle was a decent enough car, but it was when Steve took delivery of one of the new
Swift DB-1 chassis that he really came into his own. That car may very well
still be racing somewhere today; Swifts are still very competitive in this
division, nearly 30 years after they first appeared!
Another look back down the esses, this one showing the Announcer's
stand at the entrance of turn six. There was always a lot of action
here. I believe at least a few of these structures came from the old Ontario
Motor Speedway, the "Indy of the West", which fell to the axe of the
land developer just as RIR eventually would…yes, that's a plane (probably a
C-141, they fly a lot of them there) from the nearby March Air Force Base.
The winner in Formula Vee. Who
knows where this driver ended up! That was (still is, really) one of the great
things about club racing: you never knew if you might be watching the next road
racing phenom on the way up. Jimmy Vasser (later an Indy Car champion) ran with us at one
time, along with several other starters in the Indy 500…and several
celebrities…actors (Chad McQueen, Lorenzo Lamas) and singers (Christopher
Cross). Must be nice to be rich and have cool hobbies! McQueen was actually
pretty good!
A couple of
guys who fell afoul of turn six...
A night race? On a track with no lights?
You bet! This was shot during a
six-hour enduro for Showroom Stock cars…the class
name speaks for itself. It later turned into a national series. It was probably
a lot more fun to drive than to watch, but we had a nice little party up there
in the turn six grandstand…
Same race,
somewhat earlier: in the white Porsche, in what I remember was his first
professional race in many, many years, the legendary Stirling
Moss. No, really! It was a huge deal
and one of the reasons I came out to watch an endurance race, which aren't
exactly renowned for their close competition. No, I came to see Mr. Moss, and
it was worth it, probably my only chance to be able to see him drive in person.
I want to say that he shared a car with Gene Hackman
(yes, that Gene Hackman)
and as night fell and they climbed through the order, he would come up on
lapped cars, and you could tell it was him because he would be flashing his
lights and honking wildly…it was terrific!
I wish I
could label this as anything but "some kind of formula cars", but I
can't. I don't think it's Formula Russell…could be Continentals,
could be Atlantics…I did get to see several of the great WCAR West Coast
Atlantic series events at RIR. Great stuff.
The Bayside
Disposal Porsche 962, I think Hurley Haywood aboard. My God, but these were the
days…IMSA put on a terrific show back then, so many exotic cars and varying
classes, all running at once! I'm not sure exactly where I took this from,
perhaps 7 or 7B. You could pretty much go where you wanted to as long as you
looked like you belonged there…
Pace laps:
the Showroom Stock Enduro, and a Sports 2000 show.
Lots and lots of cars, especially for the enduro…it
was something of a novelty back then.
The shape
of things to come: the original
prototype Nissan GTP-ZX Turbo. I remember the hype over this car in the trades
as being way over the top, but it didn't exactly bear fruit…at least not in
this configuration. Power? Oh, it had gobs of power.
It just didn't put it down very well. Lots of folks laughed…but they wouldn't
be laughing when the next version of the car came out, and it was a genuine
world-beater.
Speaking of
world-beaters, here's a fellow who by all appearances had the world by the tail
in 1985: John Paul, Jr, in the white driving suit,
coming out of the garage. He was in the Conte Racing March-Buick Turbo, and
this was a car that could put the
power down. Paul made the best of it. He had an amazing talent that was, sadly,
cut short…not by a racing accident, but by the law, one of several names in the
sport that was linked to marijuana smuggling in the 80s. In fact, one of the
RIR IMSA shows was won by a couple of guys who also did time: Bill Whittington
and Randy Lanier. The latter is still behind
bars, I believe. I could comment on the inanity of drug laws here, but I won't,
and besides, John Paul did his time, made a brave comeback, and came awfully
darned close to winning the Indy 500. He is still one of my all-time favorite
drivers.
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