A day at the races - IROC 10/1973, Climb aboard the way back machine Options

[KELTY360]

Since joining up with this motley bunch at the end of 2005, I've wanted to post some vintage pics of my day at the long-gone Riverside Raceway. Only problem was, I needed a scanner that would talk to my computer in order to get my ancient 35mm snapshots digitized. Only took me 8+ years to join the 20th century. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/shades.gif)

In July of 1973 I was fresh out of a tour in Viet Nam and treated myself to the only new car I've ever owned, a Sunflower Yellow 1973 1.7 914. I named it KELTY because it was like a little motorized backpack with all the nooks and crannies to hold my stuff. was living in SoCal at the time so when I read about the new IROC (International Race of Champions) series coming to Riverside I had to go. The initial concept was to put the best drivers in the world into identically prepared 911 RSRs and have them compete on road courses. Ultimately this proved difficult as it was expensive to prepare thecars and many of the drivers had a tough time handling the potent tail draggers. This was the only year that 911s were used with the series switching to Camaros after year one.

These pictures were shot with an old Yashica point and shoot camera on Kodacolor film. I'd never shot a race before so you'll see that my panning technique was in the developmental stages.

The parking lot had a wide selection of cars including many Porsches. Notice KELTY with her chromies (loved those wheels). During the day I ran out of film and went back to the car to reload, only to discover that I'd locked my keys in the car! I could see them laying on the passenger seat and hunted up a couple of coat hangers to try and hook them and pull them out of the barely cracked window. While ultimately succeeding at this, many Porsche owners came by and tried their keys in the lock.



Positioned on the straight between turn 6 and 7 for the start.





Cool pace car!





Into Turn 7





The list of drivers for this event was incredible: Petty, Foyt, Fittipaldi, Revson, Follmer, Donohue, Unser, Allison, Pearson, Hulme, McCluskey, Johncock. A virtual Hall of Fame on wheels.

Richard Petty actually bought his own 911 just to learn how to drive one prior to the race. Turn 6 was an exciting spot with the drivers powering out of the exit with their RF wheels off the ground.







Mark Donohue proved what an amazing driver he was, winning two of the three races run that day.





Gordon Johncock may have been a winner at Indy, but at Riverside he showed he could only turn left. Seems like every time he came around the track he'd found some new adventure.