The accident itself was spectacular enough: at the start of the 1975 IROC event at Riverside, Bobby Unser and Bobby Allison had a meeting of the metal that put both cars into a wall. Both cars met the thin edge of the wall, with Allison’s Camaro clipping the tail of the car and Unser’s Camaro slamming into it, impacting just behind the passenger door. The image speaks for itself just how hard Unser’s car hit. But what is even more spectacular about this crash is that there were no injuries or fatalities.
IROC started in 1974 and the series used Porsche RSRs for the first year. But due to a desire to keep costs down, the 1974-75 and 1975-76 season cars moved to the 1974-body Chevrolet Camaro. And I mean “Camaro”…tube frame cars with Camaro bodywork were still a few years off. The cars racing were modified cars with VIN numbers, Traco engines, four-speeds, cages and various upgrades courtesy of either racing shops or liberal raiding of the GM parts bin. In short, if we went back in time and wanted to have a hot shovelnosed Camaro, we’d just jack one of these cars and lock it away.
Both Allison and Unser were fine post-crash, but considering that these were production-based cars with minimal re-working, the cage builders deserved any awards they had coming.
Real Men, Real Cars, Real Track. RIR RIP.