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[EProduction]

Revved Up at the Ravine

Forty years ago, race cars competed at Dodger Stadium, but not many people saw it

By Shav Glick
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 15, 2003


After Chavez Ravine was razed and Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, the area became a lightning rod for organizers of many things other than baseball.

Pope John Paul said Mass there. The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson performed there. So did the Three Tenors. There have been basketball games, ski jumping, boxing and a political rally.

First, though, was motor racing. Almost as soon as the vast stadium parking lot — large enough to accommodate 16,000 automobiles — was paved, sports car enthusiasts from the California Sports Car Club sought it for a race.

If 40,000 or more spectators would travel out beyond Riverside to watch Roger Penske, Ken Miles, Lance Reventlow, Bob Bondurant and other nationally known drivers, Cal Club officers pondered over how many would show up to watch the same cast only a mile or so from City Hall.

A tight little course of 1.3 miles, with nine turns and tricky dips, was laid out on the outer and inner perimeter roads that circle the stadium. The start-finish line was out behind center field.

Promoters claimed it was "the first time a road race has been held smack in the middle of a major U.S. city."

The first races were March 2-3, 1963, and the last ones 40 years ago this week (Dec. 14-15.)

The "Field of Dreams" mantra that "if you build it, they will come" did not hold. For reasons that still puzzle some old-timers, the races did not attract many spectators. Estimates ranged from "4,000 or less" by a magazine writer to 18,000 by the Cal Club president for the final weekend.

Miles, a veteran British endurance race driver who had settled in Hollywood, won all four modified main events in the Precision Motors' Porsche Spyder, two in March and two in December. That, it turned out, was one of the problems of selling the event.

The course was too tight for the bigger, more powerful cars of the era, which were either forced to slow down or be battered by curbs, concrete pylons, light poles or other cars. Miles himself labeled it a "Ken Miles Spyder Course."

In the hyped battle of production cars between the Ford Cobras and the new Chevrolet Sting Ray Corvettes, it was no contest as Carroll Shelby's Ford-powered AC Cobras left the Chevies of Bondurant, Dick Guldstrand and Paul Reinhart chasing shadows.

With no straightaway, Miles' average winning speed was 65 mph. Cars were going faster than that right next door on the Pasadena Freeway.

"All that power and no place to use it," complained Dave MacDonald of El Monte, driver of one of Shelby's Cobras — and he was one of the winners. "Use it and lose it."

MacDonald, who would lose his life the following year in the 1964 Indianapolis 500, won production-car races in March and finished second to Miles in the modifieds.

Miles was killed while testing a Ford J-car at Riverside on Aug. 17, 1966.

"Dodger Stadium wasn't a good course for the big cars, but it was significant in a way because it was the first time the solid-axle Corvettes took on the Cobras," said Guldstrand, who is still engineering custom Corvettes in Burbank. "It was the beginning of their head-to-head competition."

Mufflers were rather primitive as far as race cars went 40 years ago and when the city's Department of Building and Safety mandated their use, many enthusiasts felt cheated without the full-throated roar of the Porsches, Corvettes, Cobras and Maseratis at speed. Another sore point was that mufflers drained horsepower and slowed the cars.

The first race was originally scheduled for November 1962, but was delayed until the following March because of complaints by nearby residents about noise, pollution and traffic. The DBS conducted pre-race sound tests before giving permission for the races to be held.

It did not help, either, that neither Penske nor Reventlow showed up for the March opener. Penske had won the Times Grand Prix at Riverside in 1962 and Reventlow had developed the popular rear-engine Scarab. Both filed entries and were widely publicized in pre-race promotions, but on race day, both said their cars were not ready.

"It was not as good a spectator course as we anticipated," recalled Davey Jordan of Running Springs, who finished third in a production race won by Formula One driver Ronnie Bucknum. "Like most street courses, you could only see a turn or two at a time, and it didn't take long before everyone knew the big cars didn't have much of a chance."

With a course narrowed by three-foot white concrete pylons and numerous hay bales surrounding light standards, some races took on the character of a destruction derby.

Veteran driver Bob Kirby of San Marino spun into one of the light poles, breaking his Porsche in half and sending him to the hospital with broken ribs.

"The racing was sort of slow, but it was more dangerous than it looked because there wasn't much room for the cars and a lot of them were banging on each other," recalled Topper Chasse of Alhambra, who was a crewman on Kirby's car. "It was pretty exciting to watch, though."

Doug Hooper, who won a Saturday race in a Corvette, had his problems with the concrete cones.

"I won there on Saturday, then on Sunday I lost it and got the car impaled on one of those big cement things," he was quoted in the book, "California Screamin': The Glory Days of Corvette Racing."

Jimmy Dittmore and his Triumph were not so fortunate. He flipped the TR-3 in the hay bales, but only the car was hurt.

Brian Tracy of La Verne, there as a spectator, said the racing was a "road course demolition derby. One weird thing was that the cones were cement, but they looked just like the plastic ones used at other races — until you ran into one. They really ripped up some fenders."

In his biweekly Motor Racing paper, editor Gus Vignolle reported that the organizers needed 25,000 in attendance to be successful. The first races were planned to familiarize audiences with sports car racing, but when the December races attracted little more than half that number, future races were doomed.

"The entry was small and lacked luster," wrote J. G. Anthony, and that about told the story of motor racing's experiment in the Dodger Stadium parking lot.

Deke Houlgate, publicist for the December race, said he felt the low turnout was partially caused by the Baldwin Hills dam tragedy.

"We had a big press turnout on Saturday with photogs from the local papers and cameramen from all the TV stations, but that was the day the Baldwin Hills dam broke and when it happened, they all took off," Houlgate recalled. "So we had very little publicity for the Sunday race."

It was also only a few weeks after President Kennedy had been assassinated on Nov. 22, and the country was still in shock.

Two Dodger Stadium races were on the 1964 Cal Club schedule but were never held. Nor have there been any since.

[Don Capps]

Outside the "specialist press," the Dodger Stadium races attracted little attention and perhaps mediocre response at best. The article does a good job and outlining some of the problems and difficulties that the events faced. I know that more than a few of us scratched our heads at the idea, but in retrospect who knows....

[EProduction]

I participated in the Dodger Stadium event, driving a red '58 Porsche Speedster, possibly #72. I bought the car from a little old lady in Bakersfield (CA) for $1500. The engine had a bad valve. Bruce Smith, owner of Precision Motors, Bakersfield, rebuilt the engine and otherwise prepped the car to race. The car was repainted a beautiful red by a local body shop.

The engine in my Speedster was nearly stock: Racer Brown 22A camshaft, with heavy duty valve springs, twin Zenith carburetors, plain bearing crankshaft. Other mods were decambering the rear end, replacing the windshield with a handmade Plexiglas one with a lower profile, a tonneau cover with zipper, roll bar, aircraft seat belt, Goodyear Blue Streaks, and Bursch stinger exhaust system. This was the hot setup in those days. The car had limited slip differential and 60 mm Spyder front brake drums. I wore a cheap, two-piece racing suit, pre-soaked in borax for fireproofing, goggles and a white Bell helmet.

A UK friend remarking on the Ravine article said: "Fantastic. You took one hell of a risk though. Concrete bollards ?????? Not for me."

The light standards were "protected" by haybales. But there was no protection from the curbs. During practice, a red Speedster like mine hit a curb on the right and ended up on its side. This gave my pit crew (two friends) quite a scare.

We had to run mufflers but you still got the smell of rubber and Castrol R.

During the race on Sunday, I was lapped by one of the hot dogs, Alan Johnson, in the class (E Production, mostly Speedsters but with the odd Alfa 1600, Elva Courier, Lotus 7, TR3). As was my wont I tried to stay behind him and emulate what he was doing which was mainly moving his front wheels back and forth. I of course managed to spin out but didn't hit anything. After the race, I talked to the driver of a Speedster who was behind me when I spun. He uncharitably said he knew I was going to spin just looking at me entering the corner.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of the event and have managed to lose the participation plaque handed out on the pregrid. The photo wih Glick's print article must have been of practice since there's a Sprite on track with Miles' Spyder and two others and two Speedsters. The photo is by Allen Kuhn in the Topper Chasse Collection.

[Buford]

Pretty cool that we have an actual participant here!

Promoters claimed it was "the first time a road race has been held smack in the middle of a major U.S. city."

Well it wasn't that because when I was a kid, they ran a sports car race inside the International Amphitheater in Chicago. They raced around the tiny oval the midgets ran on where the specatator seating was, then went out of sight down into the various building rooms winding through the pillars holding up the roof, and came back eventually into the arena. So I guess it depends how you define "road race." The Chicago race was not on a road, but inside a building. But the L.A. race was not on a road either, but on a parking lot.

[antonvrs]

I worked both of those races as a Tech Inspector for Cal Club.
In one of the races Lew Spencer broke a spindle on his Morgan and went into the spectator area- good thing there weren't many spectators.
It was great fun watching the Cobras on that course. They were like slot cars- in power oversteer virtually the whole lap! Their "mufflers" were tin cans(remember those?) wired on the ends of the side exhaust pipes and they lasted about 2-3 laps before they blew out completely.
Ah, the good old days......
Anton

[David Beard]

Originally posted by EProduction
...
After Chavez Ravine was razed and Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, the area became a lightning rod for organizers of many things other than baseball.
.....

Thanks for that Stu...As have have suggested before, post here more often!

I found the Dodger Stadium website, but I saw nothing there about its racing history. It seems to mainly about rounders :

And isn't the American word "muffler" much more nice and cosy than our word for the thing ?

[EProduction]

>I found the Dodger Stadium website, but I saw nothing there about its racing history. It seems to >mainly about rounders.

To my knowledge, David, that was the only race conducted at Dodger Stadium.

>And isn't the American word "muffler" much more nice and cosy than our word for the thing ?

Which is "silencer?"

[David Beard]

Originally posted by EProduction


Which is "silencer?"

Yes..isn't it odd how many different parts of a car have different names in our common language.....but no matter: does anyone have photos of racing at the Dodger Stadium?

[David Beard]

Just bought Ry Cooder's Album "Chavez Ravine". I knew there was TNF connection there somewhere...

[Frank S]

"dodger" gets a mention in several threads hereabouts, but I didn't see any photos attached.

The dash plaque appears here:
http://forums.autosp...ighlight=dodger

I'm certain I've seen pictures on this forum; perhaps connected to Miles/Cobra? Something ...

[tam999]

I attended the March 2-3 Dodger Stadium event but I didn't take many photos. Scan down to the lower photo on this page from my website to see some of the Stingrays and Ken Miles' Cobra:

http://www.tamsoldra...iverside1963--3

Tam McPartland

[EProduction]

http://www.photoessa...les/dodger.html

[Dennis Currington]

Originally posted by tam999
I attended the March 2-3 Dodger Stadium event but I didn't take many photos. Scan down to the lower photo on this page from my website to see some of the Stingrays and Ken Miles' Cobra:

http://www.tamsoldra...iverside1963--3

Tam McPartland

I have a couple shots from Dodger Stadium on the site I am building for John Morton. These were from John's personal collection. http://johnmortonrac...rtonCollection/

BTW, I am always looking for more photos of John if anyone happens to have any we could use on the site.

[Jerry Entin]

That is Joe Playan in his Corvette behind John Morton in the Lotus.
They shot the ending scenes for the Elvis movie Spinout at Dodgers Stadium or Chavez Ravine as this thread is calling it. Elvis drove Ol Yaller in the movie. Bob Drake drove a Cobra 427 and Skip Hudson drove Chuck Jones's silver Lola T-70.
I had a Cheetah and a McLaren in the movie. I had a picture of Elvis geting in the Cheetah but don't know what I did with it.
photo John Morton collection.

[Dennis Currington]

Originally posted by Jerry Entin
That is Joe Playan in his Corvette behind John Morton in the Lotus. They shot the ending scenes for the Elvis movie Spinout at Dodgers Stadium or Chavez Ravine as this thread is calling it. Elvis drove Ol Yaller in the movie. Bob Drake drove a Cobra 427 and Skip Hudson drove Chuck Jones's silver Lola T-70.
I had a Cheetah and a McLaren in the movie. I had a picture of Elvis geting in the Cheetah but don't know what I did with it.

Thanks for the photo info, Jerry. I updated the site. I always say that John is "leading" when he is in front or "passing" when side by side. He usually calls me and says that he was maybe being passed.

I have a tape of that Elvis movie somewhere, will have to dig it out and watch it again. Also the race in Viva Las Vegas has some great cars in it and was filmed here in Vegas.