Riverside Remembered

But no matter the conditions that sometimes seemed to be out of a movie about the French Foreign Legion, to a racer, Riverside was a place you had to master. It rewarded those who were both brave and technically proficient. It's no wonder that Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, Mark Donohue, Parnelli Jones, George Follmer, Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme were good there.

Suffered No Fools
It also suffered no fools, didn't tolerate the timid. If you weren't prepared to hold the gas down, Riverside did not let you off the hook. If your throttle foot wavered as you came screaming past the pits, around Turn One and then headed up to Turn Two, you were out of luck, because Turn Two asked you to make a commitment. If you got sloppy on the entrance to Turn Six, it would cost you. Using the short course or the long one, if you didn't concentrate on making a strong, clean exit off Turn Seven A or Turn Eight, the guy who did would blow by before you got to the bridge over the back straight. Come ripping under that bridge and there was that boilerplate wall surrounding Turn Nine, as high as a tall man and backed up with packed desert dirt.


Yet, Riverside had a certain rhythm to it. Unlike the herky-jerky topless concrete tunnels that make up current street courses, all full of chicanes, and designed so the folks who pay for the seats can see as much as possible, Riverside was a classic among road courses, right up there with Elkhart Lake, Watkins Glen and early Laguna Seca. It had a certain rhythm to it, and the driver who found and worked with that rhythm, got in step with it, didn't fight it but flowed with it, could run up at the front—if he held the gas down.

Minus Eight
The track also changed over the years. Originally, the long back straight sent you sailing headlong into a fairly tight Turn Nine that was intended to be one end of an oval. Later, Turn Nine was opened up considerably, and you got there by first taking a flat-out kink in the back straight. The planned oval never amounted to much. Turn Seven A, that chopped off part of the back straight and eliminated Turn Eight, was added by the California Sports Car Club and gave the track its popular, short-course configuration. The short straight from Turn Six to Turn Eight, that eliminated the entire Turn Seven area, was put in to accommodate the NASCAR crowd.


Riverside was a focal point of some great racing lore. Read more about some legends and epic battles in Riverside Raceway: The Hot Tarmac.