Fantastic Video: Watch The Greatest Race Drivers Of The 1980s Compete In IROC At Riverside Int’l Raceway


Fantastic Video: Watch The Greatest Race Drivers Of The 1980s Compete In IROC At Riverside Int’l Raceway

(By Eric Rood) – No one should really have to say much to encourage you to watch this International Race of Champions event from 1988 at Riverside International Raceway, but here’s the BangShift quick pitch for ye of little faith:

This was the final year of the famed racetrack just outside of Los Angeles and the IROC race was held on the track’s final NASCAR weekend, where Rusty Wallace swept both NASCAR races. Riverside was a fairly technical track with its asphalt cracked and patched a thousand times over by its final season. Like many California road courses, no turf lined the racing surface so dropping wheels kicked up a fine brown dust fog for drivers behind and then littered the racing surface with the dirt. You like slipping and sliding? Riverside had it in spades.

The race lineup is, as you would expect in a champions’ race, full of legends: Dale Earnhardt, Bill Elliott, Al Unser (Sr. and Jr.), Bobby Rahal, and some brash, young-ish kid Trans Am champion named Scott Pruett. You even get a cameo from Lani Kae, the reigning Miss America who showed up recently in Stephen Colbert’s bizarre viral Michigan public access video.

The classic broadcast lineup includes legends Paul Page, Sam Posey, and Johnny Unser, whose talk-through of the track alone is worth checking out. If that doesn’t sell you, Jack Arute’s interview with a playful Earnhardt is highly entertaining.

There’s a race and that race includes a dozen completely bitchin’ 1988 Camaros. Former F1 driver Roberto Guerrero was in the middle of a tough-luck season that ends predictably and you gets lots of good bumping and spinning on the tight, dusty ol’ Riverside circuit.

I have no idea why you’re still reading. Watch this great time capsule.


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