Who remembers Thompson's Ridge ?.

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Permalink Reply by Wally Meier on August 16, 2015 at 10:59pm

Thanks mj, this video links to another "vintage offroad racing part 2" at 1:14:00 it shows Baja's racing at Riverside maybe Pete's friend is in it?

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Permalink Reply by Wally Meier on August 17, 2015 at 12:49am

Winston Western 500 1974, the background is the ridge before Mickey got ahold of it!

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Permalink Reply by Wally Meier on August 17, 2015 at 1:39am

A couple more shots of the ridge, one pre Mickey(look at the Birds and Daytona's) and other of Parnelli's Blazer about to hit it!

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Permalink Reply by Robert Valentine on August 18, 2015 at 8:28pm

One of the best of the day. Too bad he couldn't play fair in turn 6. That among a few things got him blackballed for many years from score.

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Permalink Reply by will on August 17, 2015 at 11:06pm

I'm thinking it was around '76 that a promoter that I can't remember ran the race up the South end around T3 and dropped off Thompson's Ridge at T5 .My uncle was running a class 2 around then and I remember him breaking shock mounts off jumping down the ice plant Wally remembers so well.. MT figured out how to use that section of the facility properly..

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Permalink Reply by RGordonNo#1 on August 18, 2015 at 2:22pm

I think the first race at Riverside was in 1973, I remember being there as a kid. Remember getting pit passes on Thursday afternoon parking the motor home on Thompson ridge years later. Sleeping on top of the motor home and tying off the motor home's awning to Thompson fence, and the crush of people walking thru are pits. I raced there later in class 2 with a Toyota powered buggy. There was nothing like going 100 mph trying to stay on the ridge. Remember the best part was using Turn 6 on the top of the hill on road course getting sideways before hitting the dirt. Also remember the old days they race turn 9, my father race then, the course was a lot longer then, they used back side of the course.

Who ever decided that we needed a new mall out there was a joke. We lost a lot of good tracks in SoCal, this one did not need to go. I remember my dad filming a lot of TV and movies out there, I was lucky as a kid in the 70's and I got to ride with Al Unser Cam Am car, that was scary because i was sitting on blanket with me type with rope holding on to Al as hit the straights doing 175 mph.

Do miss that track the most, spend a lot of time with Robby and his dad there at Riverside, the best memory was the Heavy Medal race, they race all truck class together, 4wd vs, 2wd trucks, stock vs, modified mini trucks, the best was the starts that had them all line up at the startline for the start into Turn 6.

PS - I think in 1975 Parnelli Jones took his modfied Ford Van on the course with his mechanics to show them how they need to set up his race truck. Mickey was so pissed off at Parnelli he banned his for years.