6 replies to this topic

[MG Brown]

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[Dave Crevie]

Great video! It's sad, that living so close, I didn't go there more often when it was open. My grandfather took me there. And have known a lot of people that raced there. But I was a drag racer back then, and even though road racing was of high interest to me, I was primarily a drag racer.

 

 

Some video of the 1968 Trans Am race at Meadowdale.

 

https://youtu.be/ltof03Knlm0?si=9T-Y9whlnUTJndcA 

[MG Brown]

Raceway Woods (as it is now known) hosts a "reunion" event in the fall of each year, hosted by MiRPA (Midwest Racing Preservation Association). What remains of the track is open to the public to walk or explore.

 

https://www.flickr.c...57635534007363/

 

https://www.flickr.c...157656278027144

[Dave Crevie]

Another local "ghost track" is Wilmot Hills, just across the border in southern Wisconsin.

I know I posted this film before, but it has a special place in my heart because of all the footage of Elva Couriers like mine.

 

 

https://youtu.be/Spa...NkQWyFJ8-85bd52

 

 

Wilmot Hills was mostly several straights connected by sharp corners. Obviously tough on brakes.

 

 

[Bill Seitz]

Meadowdale is preserved by being in a county or regional park. Augusta (Georgia) International is preserved likewise in a city park. Apparently, the land wasn't suitable for redevelopment.

 

Lynndale Farms, near Milwaukee, was nearly obliterated by housing development in the last aerial photos I saw - probably entirely gone now except for a couple subdivision streets built on the old course.

 

I recently took a weekend trip to Los Angeles, and we stayed at Moreno Valley 2 nights.

 

I remember the Riverside International sign and a glimpse of the north end of the track along CA60, now the Moreno Valley Mall. The hotel off Day St. is on the grounds of the former race track where nothing remains of the former facility, not even a commemorative plaque.

 

However, a few streets not actually on the old raceway grounds have familiar names: Andretti, Penske, Yarborough, and Brabham.

 

You'd have thought there'd be a Gurney, but no. I think the hotel is in an excavation below the grade of Riverside's esses. "Tam's Old Race Tracks" indicated a bit of the final 180 turn was still visible in a regional flood control basin on the south end, but that's been re-graded since, and the last bit of Riverside International is gone.

[SpeedyNH]

i once had a work trip to the area, figured i'd go see the track and missed the last riverside race by one day! bummer. 

[Dave Crevie]

I never attended a race at Riverside, but one of my cousins was, I'll say a close acquaintance of Dean Moon. We dropped by the track on a couple of his weekday test sessions, sometime around 1965. Although he was best known for his land speed record and drag cars, Dean had his finger in everything that had an engine in it.

 

Dean's transporter at Riverside with one of his Cheetah formula cars;

 

 

 

Dean and Caroll Shelby also used Riverside for some of the testing on the new Cobra. Dean was the one who put the Ford V-8 into the first one. This shot was taken behind Dean's shop;

 

 

 

Riverside rode the wave of popularity of motorsports in the 1950's and 1960's, but fell to the infection of urban encroachment. The land became more valuable for uses other than just a few times a month.