1969 Motor Trend 500 Riverside Int. Raceway

[Chris K. Hale]

The 1969 Motor Trend 500 was run on Feb. 1, 1969 leading up to the race the Woods Brothers had supplied Dan Gurney with a pair of Mercury Cyclones to race, Dan qualified the #21 in 3rd position leaving the #121 without a driver, Swede was busy else where. Dan called my Dad , who had competed with Dan on Drag strips and Ovals in the many years before and Dan had a lot of confidence that my Dad would do a great job running the second car.My Dad had been working at AAR since the beginning and had driven many AAR cars in testing since he and Dan are almost exactly the same size.. The Woods Brothers had agreed to field and pit the car regardless of the driver, Dan had Purolator agree to sponsorship based on the fact Dan had won the NASCAR races at Riverside for many years. So Dan told my Dad the car was his but he had to pay for Tires and Fuel..about $5,000 dollars for the weekend. About $50,000 in dollars today!! Raising a family of 8 , with a mortgage and a business to run, Santa Ana Raceways, things were Tight!!! I remember my Dad begging my Mom to let him race.. but no , it was just too much money. In the end Dan got Cale Yarborough . who brought 10 Minute Cleaners sponsorship with him to run the car, it was a disappointing week end as Dan blew the engine finishing 26th and Cale also blew up finishing just a few laps later in 21st. Quite a let down due to the fact that Dan Gurney was highly favored to win as he had so many times at R.I.R. The race results went down in history as it was won by Richard Petty driving a Ford Torino, a message to Chrysler that Petty could win without them, the win resulted in Chrysler offering Petty a Lifetime contract! all was not lost, the Woods Brothers threw a set of mufflers on the #121, De-tuned it and my Dad drove it on the Highway to a promotional event the following weekend in Phoenix!!!!! My Dad said the looks and comments along the way were well worth it, He said he disregarded the speed limit out in the middle of the desert and opened it up , pulling 180 mph with no problem... and the saga continues! Chris

[dustymojave]

THAT'S a cool one! Thanks for sharing that.

I was there at Riverside for that race. I worked Tech for the SCCA support races. Then was able to watch the NASCAR races. I was very disappointed when Dan dropped out.

Richard Petty had a line through the Esses at Riverside that I called the "Richard Petty line". He would get around turn 2, then take a pretty much straight line through the esses all the way to turn 5. Tires buried around the inside of the turns (old school "dragon's teeth") were not an issue for him. He raced way too many dirt short track races to be bothered by getting a little dust on his tires. He even kicked up lots of dust in a Porsche in the 1st IROC race. That line became more conventional as time went on and by the 80s he was driving it pretty much normal, but less likely to win at Riverside. I expect slick racing tires versus earlier slightly treaded race tires had a lot to do with his evolution.

As for Dan Gurney, if I were ever a hero worshipper, my hero would have been Mr. Gurney. I'm not a "favorites" kind of guy either, but if Dan Gurney was in a race, he was always my favorite. I've always had a huge respect for him. I always liked that he could go VERY fast without being a jerk at it like so many of his competing drivers did. In the 1950s, my dad was working on Ferraris for a character named Tony Parravano. Dad told me way back when that Tony had recommended to Frank Arciero that Dan should get a drive in a "big car". So Frank took that advice and put Dan in his Ferrari for a race. IIRC, Dan won that race. But anyway, he did well enough that Frank provided Dan Gurney with race cars to drive (and win with)for quite a few years.

Dad had a some other stories from working with Tony Parravano. Maybe I'll share some of them some time like you've shared your story above about Dan Gurney and your dad.

[Chris K. Hale]

The race I think you are referring to with the Arciero "Big " Ferrari was Pomona, Yup at the fair grounds, I had a really cool pic of Dan coming out from under the tunnel that is now the Exit ramp from the parking on the Drag Strip side. Those tunnels are still there and when attending the swap meet or other events you can still walk about and see the painted lines that were the Pomona Road course. Another little known race was held around the outside of the Dodgers Stadium, a road course but really kind of an Oval.. Researching Road Racing in the Los Angeles area can turn up some interesting attempts at international racing.. I too was at the 69 Motor Trend race, spent a bunch of time in the Wood Brothers garage and pit, my Dad was a bit heart broken that it wasnt him driving the #121... Chris
Ps. if you are on the road from the 101 frwy to San Luis Obisbo you will pass the Arciero Winery and they have an excellent Motorsport Museum that houses many of those Gurney/Arcerio cars. I have never been through at a reasonable hour and stopped, usually very early morning on the way to the NNL West.. I would like to go some time though..

[dustymojave]

I have a clear video in my head from when I think I was 4, so it would have been early 1960, of a race at Pomona. My folks were doing timing then. My dad had a little company he called "Timing Associates".

I suppose I was one of the "associates", as I used to run the timing slips from Timing to Scoring. Often, that meant running up and down steep staircases all weekend. So this video of Pomona involves riding in the bed of a '56 F100 pushing hay bales out the back to put around corners, and rolls of snow fence to keep spectators out of the race course. All of that was hugely heavy for a boy my size.

But then after the races Saturday, I remember going a few blocks away to the home of another race official, Dick Todd. Dick was probably in his 50s then. He had a bunch of scratch built model cars and a slot car racing set (seems to me they were "rail" racers, not "slot" racers). The models were made of carved wood bodies and pieces of metal for wheels, o-rings for tires, wire for body trim like windshield frames, etc. Sheet metal for grille shells on coupes and roadsters. Really quite good models in about 1/24 scale. Metallic and candy automotive paints. Hotrods, road racers, etc. They also had 3 huge desert tortoises that were pets living in the back yard.

A few blocks north of the fairgrounds was a shop called "Chrondek" that we went by on Friday to pick up my dad's new electronic timing machine that they had just finished custom building for him. They went on to make timers for Wally Parks and NHRA. IIRC, Dad's was the 1st electronic closed course timer. It was accurate to the nearest 100th of a second. We timed road race sports cars and motorcycles (which at that time shared race weekends with cars), go karts, rallies, slaloms, traloms, gymkhanas and more.

Shortly after that race weekend, we visited Autobooks in Burbank and inspired by Dick Todd's models, I got my 1st model car kit. A Revell 1960 Corvette. My 7 year older brother got a couple of Merit model kits. He'd already built a few other models.