Throwback Thursday

There's no drag racing hostory thread, so I put this here ...

The Life and Death of Riverside International Raceway
A two part series from Vintage Motorsport Magazine

Part One Jan/Feb 2002
This is the first of a two-part series on Riverside Raceway. Part 1 covers the birth and development of the track, its growth through the 1960s and up to 1970.
It was distinct because of where it was,out on the edge of the desert near a nondescript town. Riverside’s mystique reached to the core of racer and spectator alike—its layout magical and its races memorable.
allamericanracers.com/images/pdf/Riverside1.pdf

Part Two Mar/Apr 2002
In Part 1 of our two-part article, we covered the early years of Riverside: The building of the course, struggles to attract popular racing series and the people, fans and events that etched character into the Southern California road course through the 1970 season. In this,the final installment, we pick up in the early1970s and wind through the stories that shaped the making and, ultimately, the demise of Riverside Raceway. allamericanracers.com/images/pdf/Riverside2.pdf

For more than three decades, the world-famous Riverside Raceway fought the elements, politics, a Superspeedway competitor and economic downturns. In the end, it succumbed to housing development and a shopping mall.

Tommy Ivo's Quad-Engine Buick Wagonmaster Is the World's Most Extreme Grocery Getter

And by "insane" I don't necessarily mean ludicrously powerful and fast. Tommy took things up a notch with twin- and quad-engined contraptions. Ivo first got everyone's attention in 1957 when he started racing his Buick-powered T-bucket. He was only 19 years old. He quickly replaced the single V8 with a twin-engine setup, dropping two Nailhead mills side by side in front of the cockpit.

The recipe proved successful and Ivo became the first racer to break the nine-second barrier with a gasoline-powered dragster, setting the AA/GD record at 8.69 clicks. Ivo also became the first to hit 170, 175, and 185 mph (274, 282, and 298 kph) in a gas-fed dragster, also while driving the Twin Buick.

"Instant Ivo" is also famous for racing one of only two seven-second Top Fuel dragsters. It happened in 1963 when he challenged Don Prudhomme to the iconic Seven Second Match Race. But to me, the quad-engine Buick Wagonmaster remains his most extreme and exciting creation.



The wagon-style dragster you're looking at started life as a slingshot racer known as Showboat. Ivo introduced the monster in 1961 with no fewer than four V8 engines. All were Buick Nailhead, 401-cubic-inch (6.6-liter) powerplants grouped in pairs between the front axle and the cockpit.

Yup, I'm talking about the big-block V8 that powered iconic cars like the Buick Riviera, Electra, and Skylark. Showboat was basically a dragster with two V-16 engines. On top of that, it had all-wheel-drive power. The engines on the left side drove the front wheels, while the ones on the right drove the rear axle.

Good for a combined 2,000 horsepower and since it had an AWD setup, the four-engined monster looked like a cloud of smoke while charging down the quarter-mile. It was obviously difficult to drive in a straight line, mostly because the driver couldn't see due to all the smoke rising from the tires. But this was exactly what turned it into a crowd-pleaser.

www.autoevolution.com/news/tommy-ivo-s-quad-engine-buick-wagonmaster-is-the-world-s-most-extreme-grocery-getter-169531.html

The late, great Danny Ongais at the Winternationals, year and photographer unknown...

^ Major league brain fade by that guy ... or maybe a stuck throttle ...

2nd Annual Hot Rod Magazine Championship Drag Races at Riverside, 21 June 1965.

Garlits ...