NASCAR Once Started the Season at Riverside

We are all counting down to Valentine’s Day. Some ladies have their own reasons. For racing guys and gals it is the day the green flag waves over the Daytona 500.

Others are looking at their own motorsports niche. The Chili Bowl was just completed. Some other indoor racing is being held. Warm climate short tracks will crank up within a few weeks. But a generation ago the Cup, then Grand National, season already had an event under its belt. From 1970 through 1981 each year’s opening race was held in Riverside, California.

Years 1963 to 1969 showed an unusual method for tabulating championship points. Certain designated autumn races counted towards the following season’s title standings. Therefore Riverside was the first race held on that calendar year but not the first race counted for that championship. The exception was 1965 where it did kick off the race season.

The traditional date held in mid-January was staged on the historic nine-turn road course. A mix of southeast based NASCAR teams and West Coast stars comprised the field.

Legendary racing names make up the winner’s list. A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty, Mark Donohue, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, David Pearson, and Darrell Waltrip are among the drivers to have crossed under the wintertime checkered flag first.

A little research pulled up Ray Elder as winning the 1971 running. Elder was a West Coast racer and a six-time champion of NASCAR’s Pacific Coast Late Model Series. That tour had evolved over years from the Winston West Series to the current Camping World West Series. Elder was also inducted into the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame. It was uncommon for West Coast teams to defeat the southeast-based Cup Series regulars.

Some interesting racing dots the current mid winter schedule. Talladega Short Track’s Ice Bowl, NASCAR’s All-Star Showdown, Georgia’s Super Bowl of Racing, and Lanier’s SpeedFest are but a few to bridge the gap between season’s end and the February racing smorgasbord.

Now the Rolex 24 seems to be the light at the end of the tunnel for many, being the first televised action to satisfy the racing need. Riverside had filled that void in previous years with NASCAR’s top stars slugging it out one month earlier than we wait for now.

The Daytona 500 began opening the season in 1982 and has held that marquee position ever since. Riverside’s first annual date was moved to June where it remained until the track’s closing in 1988. Rusty Wallace claimed the final series victory there.

Counting down to Speedweeks and all its accompanying races was still anticipated but not in a way to open the year. NASCAR Race fans and teams already had a Southern California destination to warm up the January chill.

(Patrick Reynolds is a former NASCAR mechanic who co-hosts the auto racing talk show One and Done Radio Show Tuesdays at 11am ET. Listen in on www.wsicweb.com )