This beautiful reproduction poster has been re-mastered from an original 1966 advertising program for the 1966 Riverside Motor Trend 500 Stock Car Road Race at the Riverside International Speedway, in Riverside, California.
The vibrant colors and detail of this classic image have been painstakingly brought back to life to preserve a great piece of history.
The high-resolution image is printed on heavy archival photo paper, on a large-format, professional giclée process printer. The poster is shipped in a rigid cardboard tube, and is ready for framing.
The 13"x19" format is an excellent image sizes that look great as a stand-alone piece of art, or as a grouped visual statement. These posters require no cutting, trimming, or custom framing, and a wide variety of these frames are readily available at your local craft or hobby retailer, and online.
A great vintage print for your home, shop, or business!
HISTORY OF THE RIVERSIDE INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
Riverside International Raceway (sometimes known as Riverside, RIR, or Riverside Raceway) was a motorsports race track and road course in the Moreno Valley area, a suburb just east of Riverside, California. Riverside was a hot, dusty place. It was at times, also a dangerous place, yet it is remembered with affection by drivers and fans alike, as the home of road racing in southern California. It was also considered one of USA's finest tracks. The track was in operation from September 22, 1957, to July 2, 1989, with the last race, The Budweiser 400, won by Rusty Wallace, held in 1988. After that final race, a shortened version of the circuit was kept open for car clubs and special events until 1989.
HISTORY
In the beginning it was originally called The Riverside International Motor Raceway. It was built in early 1957 by a company called West Coast Automotive Testing Corp. The head of West Coast Auto Testing was a man by the name of Rudy Cleye, from Los Angeles, who had previously raced in Europe. However, the building of the raceway met with funding difficulties early on and a businessman by the name of John Edgar provided a much needed cash bailout. This action prevented any halt in the track's construction.
The first weekend of scheduled races in September 1957, a California Sports Car Club event, John Lawrence of Pasadena, California, lost his life. Lawrence, a former Cal Club member, piloting a 1500 cc Production champion, went off at Turn 5 (later designated Turn 8). With no crash barrier in place, and no rollbar on the car, Lawrence's MGA went up the sand embankment, then rolled back onto the track. Though Lawrence survived the incident, and appeared only slightly injured, he died later at the hospital of a brain injury.
The second major event at the track, in November 1957, was a sports car race featuring some of the top drivers of the day, including Carroll Shelby, Masten Gregory and Ken Miles. Another driver entered was an inexperienced local youngster named Dan Gurney, who had been offered the opportunity to drive a powerful but ill-handling 4.9-liter Ferrari after better-known drivers such as Shelby and Miles had rejected it. Shelby led early but spun and fell back. Gurney assumed the lead and led for much of the event. Shelby, driving furiously to catch up, finally overtook Gurney late in the race and won. Gurney's performance caught the eye of North American Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti, who arranged for Gurney to drive a factory-supported Ferrari at Le Mans in 1958, effectively launching the Californian's European career.
The track was known as a relatively dangerous course, with its long, downhill back straightaway and brake-destroying, relatively slow 180-degree Turn 9 at the end. During the 1965 Motor Trend 500 NASCAR race, Indycar great A. J. Foyt suffered a brake failure at the end of the straight, shot off the road and went end-over-end through the infield at high speed. Crash crews assumed Foyt was dead at the scene, until fellow driver Parnelli Jones noticed a twitch of movement. Ford factory sports car driver Ken Miles was killed there in a testing accident in August 1966 when his Ford sports car prototype (known as the J-car) became aerodynamically unstable and flew out of control at the end of the back straight.
In January 1964, Riverside also claimed the life of 1962–'63 NASCAR champion Joe Weatherly, who refused to wear a shoulder harness and wore his lap belt loosely. Weatherly died when he lost control entering Turn 6, hitting the steel barrier almost broadside and had his head snapped out the window against the barrier.
In 1983 Turn 9 was the site of the only fatality in IMSA GTP history. In the 1983 Times Grand Prix, Rolf Stommelen's Joest-constructed Porsche 935 lost its rear wing at the Dogleg and hit two freeway-type barriers sending it into a horrific roll at Turn 9.
Of the entire road course races run at RIR, there was one that was run in a counter-clockwise direction, sometime around 1960. In 1966 Dan Gurney tested his first Eagle racing car on a shorter, counter-clockwise version of the track tailored specifically for his car's Indianapolis-specific left-turn oiling system. The test caused Gurney to ask track president Les Richter to hold an Indianapolis-style race there. From 1967 to 1969 the Rex Mays 300 served as the season-ending USAC Indianapolis-car race.
ESPN taped the June 12, 1988, Budweiser 400 race at RIR and caught racer Ruben Garcia crashing hard off turn 9 and his car went through two cement barriers before coming to rest near a catch fence where fans were sitting. He was not injured, though, and neither were the race fans.
From 1981 until 1987, NASCAR's championship race was at Riverside. The USAC Championship Trail also held their season ending race from 1967 to 1969.
NASCAR Team owners Roger Penske and Rick Hendrick drove a select few races at Riverside in their own cars. Penske won a Winston West race in 1963, while in the final race in 1988, Hendrick got out of the car and let Elliott Forbes-Robinson take over.
The Winston Western 500 came to be known as the signature event at the track. Initially (1963-1981) this race was held in January as the Winston Cup Series season opener, but beginning in 1982, NASCAR elected to start the season with the Daytona 500. From 1981-1987 the Winston Western 500 was held in November as the final race of the season.
