Riverside Speedway

Riverside Speedway

This has got to be the Northernmost racetrack in New Hampshire. In this day and age it's an asphalt track, sanctioned by PASS with the occasional ACT tour race. But this blog is not about the present, is it? And to tell the truth, I haven't been to a race there since before the surface became asphalt.

The track opened in 1965. It was the brainchild of two brothers, Doc and Chet McLain. I'm not sure how the name was spelled, and I hope I'm right about the date, but it was around then by them. In the beginning it was sanctioned and officiated by some long-gone, shadowy and much-maligned group known then as The Association. No, not the rock group that did "Along Comes Mary."

It soon became obvious that associating with The Association was a big mistake. Somehow, the McLanes/McLains/McClaynes got in contact with my parents and off to Groveton we went. Dad was Pit Steward, Mom and my grandmother, Pearl Clogston were the checkers, and family friend Ted Winot from St. Johnsbury, VT was flagman. Also joining us was a young man named Donny, whose last name escapes me right now, who worked as Dad's assistant pit steward.

For the next several years I spent my Sunday mornings and evenings sitting in the middle of the back seat with four chain smokers, none of whom seemed able to roll down a window. I was nine years old when this began. How I made it to fourteen without lung cancer, God only knows. My favorite memory of the trip was a little diner a few miles south of Groveton that made great cheeseburgers and had Buck Owens on their jukebox.

The original racing surface at Riverside was some of the worst clay ever laid down. It was mostly sand, really. To hold it down the McLanes chose to add a lot of old drain oil. It didn't work. But it did make a lasting impression. Racing on this track turned that oil-soaked sand into a fine, black talcum powder that covered everything and slipped through every crack and crevice. The cars in the parking lot looked like they'd all been dipped in coal dust.

But the one who really got it was Ted. The officials all wore white shirts and pants, and on top of that Ted added a really nice top hat. He would come off the flag stand, the uniform stained a dark grey by the dust, his face caked in the stuff, and then he'd take the hat off. The top half of his forehead and his hair would be perfectly clean.

One of the other people who worked there was somewhat of an electronics whiz. He owned a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and had a CB radio in his car a decade before anyone else did. This radio also included a bullhorn mounted behind the grille. Sometimes on the way home, while we were passing through Groveton, he would follow us shouting "Look at that dirty car!" over the bullhorn.

The facility was way ahead of its time, once you got past the racing surface. It was the first banked track I ever saw, and it was big, too. This meant the cars went like bats out of hell. The grandstand area was also beautifully thought out. Instead of bleachers, you had seating for probably 1500-2000 people that stretched the length of the front straight. At the top was the concession stand, which had plenty of room and they had it set up so you could have two lines in and out. And, they could all see the racing while they ordered their food!

Above the concessions was a further floor with more or less a VIP lounge, and atop that a big, roomy judges stand. At the bottom of the stands was a cement retaining wall topped with an excellent chain-link fence. Built into that cement wall was an alcove that served as the flag stand, with a set of steps actually built into the wall for ingress and egress. The only mistake they made with this was that the door in and out of the flagstand was on the turn-4 side of the alcove. This meant that if a car went up the wall, the flagman had to go toward it to get out and into the seating area.

I'm going to leave it there for now. Next time, I'll talk a little bit about the actual racing. If you have any memories of Riverside, especially back when it was dirt, let's hear it.