Archives for the month of: March, 2015
WatcherGuide
We woke together, for what reason I don’t know but perhaps a sound. WatcherGuide ruffled her feathers and announced with no preamble; “WE MUST GO”. I believed her but I’m not sure why. I placed the kitten in a pouch and drew the strings closed. We had not spoken perhaps because I can’t speak Cat or perhaps because it was still too weak but I didn’t want it jumping from my scarf or a basket until I know it more. 
The kitten is awake but compliant.
Cogburn
Cogburn climbs into his own basket and I don the makeshift pack and gather up my other odds in the second basket.
Watcher Guide is almost hissing now…Come on ~ Come on NOW!
We crawled out from the shelter of the bush and it is night. So dark a night that the stars cast just enough light for us the see each other. The new moon is so small it looks like a hen’s claw and the light it casts is far dimmer than the planet beside it. WatcherGuide tells me to crawl, which is almost impossible with the rooster in the basket on my back and the kitten in one of the pouches around my waist but I crawl.
Follow me she says and almost disappears, I follow.
We crawl to a tent, which has a tear in the front wall. WatcherGuide goes first into the slit and I find that if I use my hands to open the slit I can enter too. She walks slowly, turning her head to see if I’m following and uses her beak to untie a cord on the back of the tent wall. This opening is even bigger and we all proceed out of the tented enclosure to what or where I don’t know.
The moon is no brighter outside the encampment than inside. I crawl for several yards but then must sit up as my body does not like the position and I’m not sure if I’m crushing or smothering the kitten.
WatcherGuide says “Don’t talk but you may walk, just follow me. I follow.
I had thought the tented city was on level ground, which it was, but it was actually situated on a plateau and covered most of the flat surface. We were at the top of a hill or a mountain and the decline was steep but there was a path of sorts.
We continue on for some time in silent softness sneaking away from what I don’t know but I do know that I don’t have the feeling of dread I had before. After some time we come to a little stream that has taken a crook so that it runs by the half seen path. I stop to fill my water pouch and WatcherGuide says that it is acceptable to rest for a while.
I take off my basket pack which contains Cogburn and pull the kitten from the pouch. The kitten speaks to me softly, just saying “Thank you” so I determine I do speak Cat too. We all just sit…not speaking…just sitting and I feel a slight sense of freedom, a sense of escape and of excitement.
Finally I say to all three; Where were we? Who are you all? Why are we here?
WatcherGuide clucks and pecks at my hands; Cogburn crows loudly and flies at my neck with his long talons, Trouble jumps from my lap and scratches and bites my face.
Food my dear they said. All is Food!
I awoke!
I dream of times uncertain, of feelings unknown, of thoughts too dreadful to contemplate
The smell of leather and mold
of mildew and must
old paper and ink
of shelves full of dust
Delights my soul
Riverside International Raceway – The Book
Pete Lyons’ new book on Riverside Raceway is a photographic tour of the historic track, its legendary races, and unforgettable drivers.
By Back Seat Driving (Star Patcher)
March 4, 2015 at 12:15am
Review by Doug Stokes 
Riverside International Raceway – The Book
Pete Lyons’ new book on Riverside Raceway is a photographic tour of the historic track, its legendary races, and unforgettable drivers.
By Back Seat Driving (Star Patcher)
March 4, 2015 at 12:15am
Review by Doug Stokes
Riverside International Raceway and Pete Lyons.
I simply cannot think of a better combination. As the above title and author information promise, the award-winning motorsports writer has turned his talent to weaving together the story that resides in an incredible array of photos using his unique writing style and personal perspective. In this beautiful book, Pete takes his readers on an eye-witness tour though three decades of the wide world of motorized competition that took place at the iconic Riverside International Raceway.
For 33 incredible years RIR was the beating heart of West Coast road racing. From its first race on September 21, 1957 to the very last of the “last ones” July 1, 1989, “Riverside” (it only had one name for us) was the place where professional American road racing truly came of age.
Riverside was, by turns, dusty, dirty, windy, burning hot, and bitterly cold. It was also big, fast, scary, very bad at taking prisoners, and we loved the place. Here, Pete Lyons retells the incredible story of what this rocky chunk of scrub desert land came to mean as one of world motorsports’ most respected race tracks. His work is (as always) as expository as it is reverent. In this book’s 224 pages, Lyons adds life to the legends and lore that are so much a part of this place located about 65 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
Name a series: CSCC, SCCA, USAC oval track big cars and midgets, the United States Road Racing Championships, IROC, Trans-AM, AMA motorcycle racing, CART/Indy Cars, Formula 1, Can-Am & Can-AM II, NASCAR, Formula 5000, IMSA, NHRA, Vintage, and even SCORE off-road racing. All ran incredibly competitive championship events at RIR. And all are represented well in this book.
Name a top driver from the 60s, 70s, or 80s—and the chance that they competed at the Raceway are about half a click under one-to-one.
Simply listing the drivers who really only need one name to be recognized might take two pages and be highlighted by this pantheon: Andretti, Bondurant, Braham, Clark, Donohue, Fittipaldi, Follmer, Foyt, Gurney, Hall, Hobbs, Hill (both Phil and Graham), Parnelli, Lunger, McLaren, Moss, McGriff, Mears (both Rick and Roger), Newman, Penske, Posey, Pruett, Rahal, Redman, Revson, Rosberg, Shelby, Stewart, St. James, Tambay, Unser (just about all of them), Ward, and Yarborough.
Lyons’ choice of chapter titles telegraphs some of the flavor of this book, like Chapter 3: “The Desert Fills with Stars” chronicling the early events that drew well-known professional drivers from far and wide as well as early car-nut Hollywood types out to the new facility.
“For Love of the Sport” deals with the Cal Club and Sports Car Club of America amateur sports car racing that was also part of the lifeblood of the Raceway. There were many stand-alone events where hundreds of entrants in multiple divisions that had the whole place to themselves. But it was also quite a rush for those same weekend warriors to find themselves as the (unpaid) undercard for one of the big Pro races like a USRRC, Can-AM, Trans-AM, or a Times GP show.
Pete’s chapters on NHRA Drag Racing and Motorcycle Road Racing are fairly brief and sort of match the kind of fan response that both of these disciplines enjoyed at Riverside. For gum-dipped fans of the straight-liners and the knee-scrapers the place was a great one with many of the young riders and drag racers who polished their early careers at the Raceway (like Eddie Lawson and Don Prudohmme) going on to huge successes and stardom at the very top levels of their craft.
But none of those shows ever got the huge crowds that the Stock Cars or the Can Am machines brought out. Pete even mentions the semi-infamous “1/2-Mile Drags” that were run early-on in the track’s life. Because the track had a straightaway that was over a mile long, the organizers decided that they could see some bigger top end numbers in 2,640 feet than in the (by then traditional ) 1,320. They could. And they also could see rods peeking out of crankcases by the numbers and stock tires destroying themselves as cars were run flat out for what turned out to be a very, very long time. There were six Hot Rod Magazine-sponsored NHRA (quarter-mile) national events that ran from 1964 to 1969.
His “Easter Eggs in Autumn” chapter gives insights into the International Race of Champions (“IROC”) events that featured what had to be the best ever national and international driver participation ever. To my mind, and still to this very day, no other “all star” driver gathering anywhere in the world has ever had the sort of star power that the Riverside IROC races attracted. The reference to “Easter Eggs” was a comment on the wide range of colors that the IROC cars (the first gen machines were Porsches and Chevy Camaros thereafter) were painted. There were pink, robin’s egg blue, purple, and bright yellow machines to go along with the more traditional red, black, white, blue, etc hues. And the racing? It was as heated, brilliant and hyper-competitive as any F1, NASCAR, or Can-Am championship race ever run anywhere on the planet. These guys were all smiling and joking in the group photos and all business when the green flag flew!
In “Who Needs Pavement” is the story of how short course off-road racing impresario (famous for filling the LA Coliseum up with dirt and jumping dune buggies and off-road trucks off the iconic peristyle end of the two-time Olympic venue) Mickey Thompson designed one of the wildest off-road courses ever. He created it using almost every square inch of the Riverside real estate (be it dirt or paved). Hoards of high-powered off-road buggies and racing trucks running at speeds broaching 100 miles per hour hurtling down the “wrong way” (south) along the high-banked dirt edges of the esses on “Thompson’s Ridge” was an unforgettable image for anyone who attended. Those races and the raucous campouts that lit up the night with lit up fans and racers were another chapter of legendary place … and the last big crowd, pro event at the place.
There’s an afterword written by Fritz Duda, who was one of the long roll call of executives/owners/caretakers/investors that operated Riverside over the years. Duda was there near the end and here he adds his own viewpoint as to the demise of the facility. A sad photo that’s associated with this section looks northward where T9 is still standing, but almost all the rest of the track is being turned over and roughed up by giant earth moving equipment.
One other name that looms large in the RIR firmament is the late Les Richter. He was a retired Hall of Fame professional football player hired on because of his expertise in the real estate field and to whom many attribute the greatest successes of the facility. As track president he was a no-nonsense guy who really made Riverside work and work very nicely. “Coach”, as he was universally called by one and all, went on to become a well-liked and highly-respected top official in NASCAR.
A kind word is also quite appropriate here for the art direction of this beautifully presented book of memories. Consummate publishing pro Richard Barron has done a terrific job of picking out and arranging the hundreds of photos that make this book such a treasure. In this book, 1+1 (words and the pictures) add up to far more information than either one of them could ever transmit alone.
Just for the record, there are over 500 photos and illustrations in this special salute to Riverside that Barron (with a little help from Pete himself, I suspect) selected from some 50 photographers, collections, and institutions many of which had never before been published.
There are a thousand times a thousand more stories about Riverside. This book that will doubtless jumpstart a torrent of them. If you were there, you want this book; if you were never there, you need this book. Either way, enjoy the laps!
Sad to report that, just as this book was being published, the founder and principal of the Riverside International Automotive Museum, Doug Magnon, passed away after a brief illness at age 55. The museum was the site of the annual Riverside Raceway Reunion, and the source of a number of photos and reference materials which were used to complete this book. Doug will be missed greatly by all who knew him, as well as by the many fans that have benefitted from his founding of the RIAM.
*One needs to remember these were guys like Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Tony Settember, Ronnie Bucknum, and Ginther—California drivers who all made their bones racing at Riverside and all went on to drive in Formula One. That was, and still is, the big deal about the joint.
RIVERSIDE INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
A Photographic Tour of the Historic Track, Its Legendary Races, and Unforgettable Drivers
By Pete Lyons
Foreword by Dan Gurney
Book design by Richard M. Baron
Spry Publishing, LLC ( http://www.sprypub.com)
ISBN 978-1-938170-11-9
$49.95 USA, Canada
Personalized, autographed copies of this book are available directly from Pete Lyons himself at http://www.petelyons.com USA (951)679-9796
The author is the Editor-at-Large at LA Car. For more information and to see more photos of Riverside International Raceway, go to LACar.com or Facebook.com/lacarcom.
Riverside International Raceway and Pete Lyons.
I simply cannot think of a better combination. As the above title and author information promise, the award-winning motorsports writer has turned his talent to weaving together the story that resides in an incredible array of photos using his unique writing style and personal perspective. In this beautiful book, Pete takes his readers on an eye-witness tour though three decades of the wide world of motorized competition that took place at the iconic Riverside International Raceway.
For 33 incredible years RIR was the beating heart of West Coast road racing. From its first race on September 21, 1957 to the very last of the “last ones” July 1, 1989, “Riverside” (it only had one name for us) was the place where professional American road racing truly came of age.
Riverside was, by turns, dusty, dirty, windy, burning hot, and bitterly cold. It was also big, fast, scary, very bad at taking prisoners, and we loved the place. Here, Pete Lyons retells the incredible story of what this rocky chunk of scrub desert land came to mean as one of world motorsports’ most respected race tracks. His work is (as always) as expository as it is reverent. In this book’s 224 pages, Lyons adds life to the legends and lore that are so much a part of this place located about 65 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
Name a series: CSCC, SCCA, USAC oval track big cars and midgets, the United States Road Racing Championships, IROC, Trans-AM, AMA motorcycle racing, CART/Indy Cars, Formula 1, Can-Am & Can-AM II, NASCAR, Formula 5000, IMSA, NHRA, Vintage, and even SCORE off-road racing. All ran incredibly competitive championship events at RIR. And all are represented well in this book.
Name a top driver from the 60s, 70s, or 80s—and the chance that they competed at the Raceway are about half a click under one-to-one.
Simply listing the drivers who really only need one name to be recognized might take two pages and be highlighted by this pantheon: Andretti, Bondurant, Braham, Clark, Donohue, Fittipaldi, Follmer, Foyt, Gurney, Hall, Hobbs, Hill (both Phil and Graham), Parnelli, Lunger, McLaren, Moss, McGriff, Mears (both Rick and Roger), Newman, Penske, Posey, Pruett, Rahal, Redman, Revson, Rosberg, Shelby, Stewart, St. James, Tambay, Unser (just about all of them), Ward, and Yarborough.
Lyons’ choice of chapter titles telegraphs some of the flavor of this book, like Chapter 3: “The Desert Fills with Stars” chronicling the early events that drew well-known professional drivers from far and wide as well as early car-nut Hollywood types out to the new facility.
“For Love of the Sport” deals with the Cal Club and Sports Car Club of America amateur sports car racing that was also part of the lifeblood of the Raceway. There were many stand-alone events where hundreds of entrants in multiple divisions that had the whole place to themselves. But it was also quite a rush for those same weekend warriors to find themselves as the (unpaid) undercard for one of the big Pro races like a USRRC, Can-AM, Trans-AM, or a Times GP show.
Pete’s chapters on NHRA Drag Racing and Motorcycle Road Racing are fairly brief and sort of match the kind of fan response that both of these disciplines enjoyed at Riverside. For gum-dipped fans of the straight-liners and the knee-scrapers the place was a great one with many of the young riders and drag racers who polished their early careers at the Raceway (like Eddie Lawson and Don Prudohmme) going on to huge successes and stardom at the very top levels of their craft.
But none of those shows ever got the huge crowds that the Stock Cars or the Can Am machines brought out. Pete even mentions the semi-infamous “1/2-Mile Drags” that were run early-on in the track’s life. Because the track had a straightaway that was over a mile long, the organizers decided that they could see some bigger top end numbers in 2,640 feet than in the (by then traditional ) 1,320. They could. And they also could see rods peeking out of crankcases by the numbers and stock tires destroying themselves as cars were run flat out for what turned out to be a very, very long time. There were six Hot Rod Magazine-sponsored NHRA (quarter-mile) national events that ran from 1964 to 1969.
His “Easter Eggs in Autumn” chapter gives insights into the International Race of Champions (“IROC”) events that featured what had to be the best ever national and international driver participation ever. To my mind, and still to this very day, no other “all star” driver gathering anywhere in the world has ever had the sort of star power that the Riverside IROC races attracted. The reference to “Easter Eggs” was a comment on the wide range of colors that the IROC cars (the first gen machines were Porsches and Chevy Camaros thereafter) were painted. There were pink, robin’s egg blue, purple, and bright yellow machines to go along with the more traditional red, black, white, blue, etc hues. And the racing? It was as heated, brilliant and hyper-competitive as any F1, NASCAR, or Can-Am championship race ever run anywhere on the planet. These guys were all smiling and joking in the group photos and all business when the green flag flew!
In “Who Needs Pavement” is the story of how short course off-road racing impresario (famous for filling the LA Coliseum up with dirt and jumping dune buggies and off-road trucks off the iconic peristyle end of the two-time Olympic venue) Mickey Thompson designed one of the wildest off-road courses ever. He created it using almost every square inch of the Riverside real estate (be it dirt or paved). Hoards of high-powered off-road buggies and racing trucks running at speeds broaching 100 miles per hour hurtling down the “wrong way” (south) along the high-banked dirt edges of the esses on “Thompson’s Ridge” was an unforgettable image for anyone who attended. Those races and the raucous campouts that lit up the night with lit up fans and racers were another chapter of legendary place … and the last big crowd, pro event at the place.
There’s an afterword written by Fritz Duda, who was one of the long roll call of executives/owners/caretakers/investors that operated Riverside over the years. Duda was there near the end and here he adds his own viewpoint as to the demise of the facility. A sad photo that’s associated with this section looks northward where T9 is still standing, but almost all the rest of the track is being turned over and roughed up by giant earth moving equipment.
One other name that looms large in the RIR firmament is the late Les Richter. He was a retired Hall of Fame professional football player hired on because of his expertise in the real estate field and to whom many attribute the greatest successes of the facility. As track president he was a no-nonsense guy who really made Riverside work and work very nicely. “Coach”, as he was universally called by one and all, went on to become a well-liked and highly-respected top official in NASCAR.
A kind word is also quite appropriate here for the art direction of this beautifully presented book of memories. Consummate publishing pro Richard Barron has done a terrific job of picking out and arranging the hundreds of photos that make this book such a treasure. In this book, 1+1 (words and the pictures) add up to far more information than either one of them could ever transmit alone.
Just for the record, there are over 500 photos and illustrations in this special salute to Riverside that Barron (with a little help from Pete himself, I suspect) selected from some 50 photographers, collections, and institutions many of which had never before been published.
There are a thousand times a thousand more stories about Riverside. This book that will doubtless jumpstart a torrent of them. If you were there, you want this book; if you were never there, you need this book. Either way, enjoy the laps!
Sad to report that, just as this book was being published, the founder and principal of the Riverside International Automotive Museum, Doug Magnon, passed away after a brief illness at age 55. The museum was the site of the annual Riverside Raceway Reunion, and the source of a number of photos and reference materials which were used to complete this book. Doug will be missed greatly by all who knew him, as well as by the many fans that have benefitted from his founding of the RIAM.
*One needs to remember these were guys like Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Tony Settember, Ronnie Bucknum, and Ginther—California drivers who all made their bones racing at Riverside and all went on to drive in Formula One. That was, and still is, the big deal about the joint.
RIVERSIDE INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
A Photographic Tour of the Historic Track, Its Legendary Races, and Unforgettable Drivers
By Pete Lyons
Foreword by Dan Gurney
Book design by Richard M. Baron
Spry Publishing, LLC ( http://www.sprypub.com)
ISBN 978-1-938170-11-9
$49.95 USA, Canada
Personalized, autographed copies of this book are available directly from Pete Lyons himself at http://www.petelyons.com USA (951)679-9796
The author is the Editor-at-Large at LA Car. For more information and to see more photos of Riverside International Raceway, go to LACar.com or Facebook.com/lacarcom.
saywhatumean2say 