HiTech

working on getting the tps 8 out .someone wont let me park it .

I assume you are talking about Larry Kraus. I can gladly say I raced with him and talked with him many times. What a great guy.

LARRY KRAUS ,, KNOWN AS THE OLDEST MAN RACEN AT CC THEN ALSO KNOWN AS THE SEXY GRANDPA .... GIRLS .AND LADYS COULD NOT STAY AWAY FROM HIM ... .. HARD AS HELL TO BEAT ..WHEN WE DID WE THOUGHT WE BEAT DALE SR ...IF EVER A BEST MAN AWARD IN RACEN WAS AWARDED ..HE HAD IT WON BY A MILE ...NEVER A MAD MOMENT I EVER SAW IN HIM ..........HE AND POPS CARPENTER CRT.S DAD WERE GREAT MEN .THEY BOTH OFFERED ALOT TO RACEN ...BOTH WERE CLEAN DRIVERS .. THEY BOTH GAVE RESPECT AND NEVER ASKED FOR IT BACK .AND I KNOW THEY ARE BOTH ALONG WITH DALE GINGRICH IF THATS HOW YOU SPELL HIS NAME .ARE GETTING IT ON IN HEAVEN ..

I think we still have those wheels and tires stacked up in the barn too.

dang man ..you a pac rat .........and that car did go over turn two wall ...rick rapp went over there and another driver ..low wall back then ..the next season frank and dick had my brother and i build it up alittle ..sorta crappy like but helped till don went back and fixed all the junky way they had us do it .including the railing we added to the front strieght wall ...glad thats all gone ......frank and dick didnt like to spend money to repair anything ........................... two other drivers who raced those cars back then ..doug mcbee and david evans ..doug is still around running that beach to bay run ..and sadly david passed away ..eric williams went north and lost track of where he is ..heard storys ..

i remember david horton driveing his street legal vw buggy out to there and rolled it one night in turn three and four ,and drove it home later that night ..funny ..we talked aboult that at cc not long ago //...i lost my hood comeing out of turn one ..think the pit crew forgot to put the pins on it .we ran over that hood lap after lap i ran over too .... after the race they brought it back to me ..not any damage other than tires marks and mud ..so i put it back on and pinned it ...that shows just how soft a track riverside was ... or muddy .........

CC Mini- Stocks 1994 4 Wide at the bullring This is Mid- season, note how nice all those cars still looked.

 

Is that little red bug who i think it is?...i can't quite make out the number

well dont see a pic ...but only one person with a little red car .... miss old sexy grandpa ....... the cars looked good back then cuz drivers then had respect for one another ..

smelt like septic runoff yep..i know i could not keep the paint on my car ..........but before it was a dirt track for cars .. it was a dirt bike track .and a mud track at one time ......

My experience at Riverside came in 1985.After the 3rd race at RGS,Robert Theser dropped our class of outlaw minnies so I had no place to race my brand new car.Randy Young suggested Riverside so I gave it a try.Since Jim Melhart almost twisted mine any my brothers arm to switch to the 10 inch McCrearys my car loved that track and so did I.Sonny gave us a great purse and my brother started racing there too.We had the black VWs #s 77 and 64.We called his car the flying nun because the fenders looked like a nuns hat.

 

We had fierce battles between us,Greg Spreen who now sells race motors and the father of Dillon Spreen from late models.Also the Expressions in Wood sponsered chopped Bug.and Melharts car then owned my Micky Collier I think.Bubba was there with his Capri.The guys fron the Navel Air Base bbrought the most cars.Many others too.

 

The first race in 1986,the trophy dash I won and a pink Rolls Royce pulled up to the finish line.I remember thinking " man this place really rocks,I just won a Rolls!!!!!" It turned out it was carrying the Trophy Girls,3 dancers from I think The Playpin all dressed in pink ruffels.I did not get to keep them eather but I have the memories.Sonny Brown and John Farquair ( Im sure misspelled ) were the first promoters to treat the mini stock racers as real racers,gave us respect,good purses and it showed with good car counts.Loosing Sonny was a great loss to the mini stock community.Riverside tried to stay open but without resources it failed.

 

It took me almost 10 years to find another promoter with the same respect for the 4 banger guys.His name was Donny Yocum. R.I.P you guys,I will never forget eather of you.Hope to race for you again someday. G.B.Carter

that was one ugly bug you had ..wedge typ .. . i think john gun was racen with yah back then ..and both sullivan boys ... riverside had to many land owners from what i remember .and some wanted it back ..or more money ..if i heard right ....first track i ever turned a lap on .. .man they had alot of cars there ..... remember crazy james with his pink camero ..... darrel philps . and others i cant name right now ...

Hitech, let's see a pic of that car you ran at riverside.

ok ill get my son to post it ..i aint that putor smart ..lol

my uncle was aruthur "shorty" berends. he always had he blue tow truck in the infield of cc speedway. his ashes are spread around the track. rick rapp spread his ashes and then gave me and my sister a ride around the track in his 99 miller lite firebird.

i remember old shorty .....he hooked me a couple of times ..id say he loved hooking you more than life itself ..guys like us that have been going to the races from way back in the 60.s ...miss alot of those men .......frank ...dub ..willy ..walter .....shorty ....don sr ..don weatherspoon.. and many others ..just nameing then bring back alot of memorys ....not to mention how old you feel now ..

Lets here more stories on riverside, who all raced there that still races?

my first laps in a racecar were at riverside ..in 1984 .....i raced six weekends towards the end of season .... other than my first race i ran .i finished third racen 13 other cars ..that was the best finish i got .the others i raced ...were not so good ..after getting hit and knocked out of some races ..found out a black car on dark clay track .didnt fit to well ...... ill get my son to add the last pic i got of me in my car ..... 68 camero ..305 bored 30 with camel hump heads ...i was told it would not run fast ..against the 358.s ..but i showed them lol..when i was on the track ofcourse .. .my fondess memorys were of don weatherspoon comeing over to this rookie and telling me ..look .lock in the rear end ..and run that damn car in second gear . peewee norrel wielded my gears for me .......i didnt know i was suppose to shift .. first gear was ok with me .up till then ...thats what got me into trouble ..i started pole but didnt like what i was feeling ..so i backed down to let everyone go past me ..that was not a good ideal at that time ..28 cars .. five of them hit me and carried me all the way down to turn one ..that ended my dirt racen ..car was junk ...slidways racen was fun ..mud cleaning and ball joint replacements every week wasnt ..i never raced on dirt again ....

Sonny jumped started his old batterey in the plane one to many times!

is that what brought it down .

Who opened riverside speedway?

thats a good one ..sunny brown i think was his name .. he died in an airplane crash out in one of our bays ..not sure which one it was...i want to say just off of rockport.......i know someone will tell us .

Ok heres another on for ya,

 

Magic Isle and the Water Slide on PID, and the Movie "Legend of Billie Jean" filmed in CC.

i dont remember much .was alittle too young but do have a pic of me crying going around in a kiddy car at the old carnival on north beach ...... i do remember those others you mentioned ......what movie was that they shot a scene of cc speedway at the begining was it target .with gene hackman and matt damon or how ever u spell thier names. .. it had rick rapp and a few others going around the track and .our very own movie star.... sam wilcox as the pit crew on matt.s car .........as for cc pic.s wished i had the load of pic,s old frank carried with him ..he had a ton of em ..came to me once in 89 and showed me a pic of i in the 70.s standing talking with terry .... he wasnt sure it was me ..i had long hair like reb ..got a good laugh ....

the mud bog tracks were great if i dont say so myself ..i dug em with an old srapper .... the mx track was knocked down when oneal had it .after frank took the track back over .he was not a happy camper .... one the mud pits were out in the parking lot .plus the mx track was flattened out .and nothing but some old tires were left of it .. so he hired my older brother and i to clean it up .tear down the fences oneal put up ..redug the mud track back to where the pits are now ..and tons of other work ..just to get it back opened ...we replaced or added some wall in turn two .to help keep cars from flying out like rick rapp and so many other had gone over kinda cheaply done ...don sr fixed the walls alot better later on .........that table top jump from the mx track was an old bridge .. it is now buried in the area of the scales ..

TERRY ALONG WITH OTHER DRIVERS WOULD RACE CUDDIHY ON FRIDAY NIGHT .AND RACE AT CC ON SATERDAY NIGHT .. NEVER REALLY WENT TO THAT TRACK TO SEE A RACE ..TO FAR TO WALK FROM MY HOUSE ... BUT DID GET RIDES OUT TO A COUPLE OF DRAG RACES .. SAW ..HELL ON WHEELS .PATTY WAGON RACE THERE ..

the 80 car is dark but looks to me to be a studabaker ......366 posts . added to that ..this has to be a record .....

I wonder exactly how many cars ended up bent beyond repair after an encounter with the infamous SAS boiler plate...

 

I know of one for sure. The Johnny Ivy / Nick Holt / Bruce Mabrito Vega broke a RF hub going into turn one in 1978 with Bruce behind the wheel. "Hello wall, goodbye car." Too bad, too. That car was mighty quick on the half-mile.

 

Nick

JACK DISHMAN TOOK A BAD WRECK INTO THE FRONT INSIDE WALL WHERE THAT OPENING WAS .HIS PRO 4 WAS SHORTEN WAY UP ..IT WAS DESTORYED ALL THE WAY TO THE BACK END .I COULD NOT BELIEVE HE WALKED AWAY .

Don't laugh... you know what I think of after great racing when I think of SAS?

 

COLD BEER and Jalepeno Fried Chicken!!!

lol you would think of food at a time of like this ..the chili when nick ran the track ..

i cant remember the name but it was a 250 lap race i believe ..clifford allison raced that night .it was just after donnie was hurt ..what year was that ...... that was my first race to attend at sa ... years later my wife and kim scored for nick when he ran it ..use to ride along and and sit with my son watching races .... then we started racen with tps with the 55 of steven carpenter..... and then moved on to the number 7 of jessie sandoval ..we built a new car in 02 to go up and try and get a win. finaly got one ...... sure miss that track .we always looked forward to racen there ..thunder hill and sa are our favorite tracks to race on ..now we have but just one ..

double 0 car was our.s finished 5 th .not bad seeing we didnt have the money those others had ..we would run the pull off.s from the leaders .. i dont remember us ever haveing a new tire till 1989 .. i forgot i raced in two races that year ...flagman was raceing the tank back then ..lol

NOW I AINT THAT OLD ... YOU GOT ME .

thats his name ive been trying to remember it ..thanks ..what happen to darrel ....see pappy i thought you were crazy in saying that was jamie... then again it did loo :)k like jamies line he took .and your line of blocking ...

riverside was on greenwood ..

THANK YOU ..I KNOW THERE WAS A DIRT TRACK ON WHAT IS NOW STAPLES ..ASWELL AS AIRLINE FROM WHAT I HEARD .. QUIET A FEW OTHER TRACKS FROM WHAT I HAVE BEEN TOLD WERE HERE ALL OVER THE CITY

ANYONE HAVE ANY OLD PICS OF CC SPEEDWAY FROM THE 40.S UP /..