Pete Lyons

Ah, Riverside. Not my favorite city nor place to live, but oh, that High Desert. I loved it so and still recall it with a wistful smile on my face. It is the subject of a lot of stories I've written and probably will be the setting for many more. Fiction, mind you. I didn't live there long enough—a bit more than five years—to be a true Desert Rat. Mayhap someday I will return, but they made it a whole lot harder when they plowed under Our Racetrack.

It wasn't as if we didn't see it coming. Even when I arrived for my first tenure in the Inland Empire I knew that the glorious bit of twisty pavement across the 60 Freeway from my home was not long for this world. Riverside was expanding, Sunnymead was incorporating and would become Moreno Valley, and soon there would be a Mall. God knows southern California loves its Malls and doesn't care much for race tracks. So it's another race track gone, and yet another monument to commerce rises in its place. Last time I was out there I was invited to spend a few hours at Moreno Valley Mall. No thanks, I said, I've been there when it was what it should be now.

Pardon me while I sigh and wipe a few tears. Yes, I know, tears and all, but it beats violence.

Now. On to the review of this remarkable book.

This is a loving remembrance of Riverside International Raceway. Riverside was, and probably always will be my favorite race track of all time. Yes, it's true that I only got to see it in its dying days, but oh…those days! So many Cal Club shows, several IMSA events, the last of the Can-Am/Trans-Am weekends, a six hour showroom stock race where actor Gene Hackman teamed up with F1 Legend Sir Stirling Moss…meeting and speaking with author/timing expert Sylvia Wilkinson, Olympic Decathlete Bruce Jenner (when he was still Bruce, and was a decent enough race driver and a very nice young man) picking Sam Posey's brain for info on how he knew Al Holbert would finish 4th in the previous year's Indy 500, meeting and talking with Willy T Ribbs and John Martin and Rich Vogler…so many wonderful memories…

It's all here, from the very beginning to the bitter end, crammed with loads of pictures from the glory days to the last gasps and terrific text from a man who ought to know it all by heart, SoCal's own Pete Lyons, of AutoWeek (remember? back when they actually covered RACING?) and Formula (later Racecar) and the long lamented On Track and more credits than it's reasonable to expect me to list here. Check out his website (petelyons.com) for more details. The man knows that of which he speaks and you could have no better guide to the twists and turns of the sprawling, history-drenched speed plant than he. Would that it were still there for us all to enjoy and for him to actually lead us around, but we shall have to content ourselves with this book, and perhaps a trip to the museum on the other side of Box Springs Mountain…the peak from which I watched the Kraco IndyCar team practicing down at the raceway in 85…ah, more memories…

This is a volume that has been needed for a long, long time, and I'm glad it's finally here. I've already read it through twice and probably will keep it near for years to come when my memory starts to fail me.

Thanks, Mr. Lyons. Perhaps I can get you to sign my copy?… (más)