Abandoned drag srtip east of Phoenix

[427TJ]

Located 60 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, Riverside Raceway opened in September 1957 with a road course and a drag strip. Known more for its road course, Riverside did host the 1964 Hot Rod Magazine Championship Drag Races and some of the August '64 magazine coverage is shown below. Cancerous urban sprawl finally made its way out to Riverside by the 1980s and the track succumbed to the relentless spread of stucco in 1989.

Located east of the intersection of two freeways, 395 and 60, and just north of March Air Force Base:



USGS topo map image:



Drag strip, shown in orange at bottom, ran toward the north:



HRM August 1964 coverage:













Grandstands on west side of track, which can be seen running under the bridge at far right:



Top Fuel winner Jack Williams (8.13), far side, defeated Tony Waters who fouled:



1965 photo showing a new GT 350 with the starting line of the strip in the background. View looks east:



The stucco monster finally gobbles up Riverside in this 1988 photo from Wikipedia. View looks east: