Thunder In the Desert: Stock Cars At Riverside (Riverside International Raceway) Paperback – July 31, 2025

Stock cars saved the day at Riverside International Raceway. Originally built as a world class sports car track, they even hosted Formulas One but didn't make any money. Along came stock cars, drawing crowds as large as 70,000. and , The first stock car event, held in December 1957 was a 250 mile USAC championship event won by Jerry Unser. Then came the Crown America 500, a three day weekend of midgets, sprint cars and stock cars promoted by J.C. Agajanian. Lloyd Dane won the May 1961 NASCAR Grand National race. 1962 had a two twenty seven lap USAC racesThen Les Richter negotiated a deal with NASCAR bringing Cup racing and profitability to Riverside. January 1963 brought the first Riverside 500, won by Dan Gurney, marking the first of many years with the NASCAR opener at Riverside. November of that year was the Golden State 400. Supporting races of late model stock cars and later Southwest Tour were added in 1967. In 1970 a second race in June was added. In 1981 the opening race was moved to Daytona and Riverside got June and November dates with the last NASCAR race, in June 1988, won by Rusty Wallace. There were twenty different winners and forty eight NASCAR Cup races plus the supporting events and a few Windston West races.Wolin's book covers every event, race by race, with photos, newspaper articles and interviews with those that were there. Nothing like this has ever been done before; a masterful piece of research. Read more