The Right Courses of Action.(remembering and honoring Riverside International Raceway and Bridgehampton Raceway)(Column)

Byline: Dutch Mandel

This is a tale of two tracks, each of whose twists, turns and influence spread beyond driver and enthusiast, through neighborhoods to circuit courts.

Since its first race in September 1957, Riverside International Raceway was an integral part of postwar American sports car history. A nine-turn road course 60 miles inland from Los Angeles, the former turkey farm stretched out in varying lengths from 2.5 to 3.3 miles, and reached further still into racing lore.

How can a racetrack be a landmark? It earned that status honestly. One of the most versatile circuits in the country, Riverside hosted Formula One, NASCAR, Indy cars, USRRC and the Can-Am, Trans-Am, Formula 5000, IMSA, sprint cars, off-road racing, IROC, and even drag racing. Drivers who competed there form a hall-of-fame list, guys named Ginther, Surtees, Donohue, Holbert, Sharp, Hall, Shelby, Earnhardt, Petty, Gurney, Allison, Rahal, Moss and Haywood, to name a few.

Riverside was home to great battles and epic moments, run by Les Richter, a bear of a man, who took no quarter and made the sport entertaining before it became fashion.

Riverside collected, as I recall, a legion of roguish scalawags, more so than did other tracks. Here regular unsanctioned backward rent-a-car races took place; a few Hertz- and Avis-mobiles even plumbed local hotel pool depths. Drivers and hangers-on met local constables with eerie frequency.

I also remember too well that one of racing's scariest moments happened at Riverside in the 1986 IMSA race as Doc Bundy's Corvette tried to pass Lyn St. James in a Mustang Probe, and also a Jaguar, in the first turn. They got together in a flash; the Jag slammed and rode the outside wall for several hundred yards as it disintegrated. The Probe flipped into the air, body panels flailing every which way. It landed on its roof and erupted into flames. An upside-down Lyn climbed free to a collective sigh.