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Gurney and Riverside

A match made in the desert

No driver and no track were ever as closely linked as Dan Gurney and Riverside. He won five NASCAR races there, including four in a row, from 1963 to 1966, and again in '68. He ran the Indy Eagle in the Rex Mays events and dominated. His favorite racing number, 48, was borrowed from Les Richter, who ran Riverside for years and had worn 48 in his playing days with the LA Rams. If there was a big-bore event at Riverside, Gurney was in it.

Br'er Dan

Gurney was born in New York and grew up on Long Island, but was stoked on racing and high performance and in those days California was where it was happening. He likens his family's move to Riverside to an Uncle Remus story: When the Gurney clan landed in California he says, "I felt like I was being thrown into the briar patch, which is right where Br'er Rabbit and Dan Gurney wanted to be!"

And when some hardscrabble land east of town started getting formed into a racetrack, Gurney was exactly where he wanted to be. He and his buddies went out to see what was going on and, he says, "We followed the bulldozers around on our motorcycles." No doubt working on the line through the esses.

Rex Mays 300

He's had quite a few memorable races at Riverside, but asked to pick one, he gives the Rex Mays 300 of 1967. Ozzie Olson, of Olsonite fame, was the sponsor, and Jim Chapman set up one of the first big sponsorship entertainment centers with food and drink and a carved ice sculpture—the works. The race started, Gurney took off and had a big lead, then got a flat tire. He pit to change the flat and retook the track with a 42-second deficit and only 20 laps to go—and the cream of the then-current Indy car crop ahead of him. "To make a long story short," he says, "we won it, on either the next-to-last or last lap. And there was pandemonium in the tent."

"We also had some 500-milers that were very memorable," he says, in reference to those wins in the NASCAR races. "I was with the top team in the business, the Wood Brothers—those were good times." Talking about it with him, even on the phone, you can hear his grin. Yes, Dan, those were good times.

Thanks for giving them to us.