Sept. 1960 road race program

I recently purchased a program from the Marchbanks Road Races (PDF download) held Sept. 17-18, 1960. This was the first road race at the newly rebuilt and renamed Marchbanks Soeedway (formerly Marchbanks Stadium). 

The race calendar included a variety of production classes, formula cars, motorcycles, modifieds and two "ladies" races. 

The most valuable bit of info in this program is a detailed diagram of the nine-turn, 1.8-mile road course. This is the first "official" diagram I've seen that details the banking in the three turns. Not the extremely sharp hairpins in the infield and front straight (you can see images of that view here).

The road racers ran the course clockwise (the oval drivers counterclockwise). With those differences in mind, I'll use geographical references to describe the turns:

• The 222-foot radius southern turn (Turn 1 on the oval track) was banked at 22 degrees
• The 476-foot radius northeastern Turn 2 was also 22 degrees
• The northwestern turn (Turn 3 on the oval) was 18 degrees in the tight 282-foot radius on the eastern side and 17 degrees on the western 470-foot radius.

NOTE: The PDF contains two copies of Page 3. A postcard from the California Sports Car Club was taped to the page, and rather than peel it off and damage the page, I've left it on and scanned versions with the card on the page and pulled up. And it's that adhesive tape that caused the yellowing of the track map on Page 4. 

Map of Marchbanks road course, circa 1960

This map shows the course layout for the first Marchbanks Road Races on Sept. 17-18, 1960. (The yellow square is caused by glue from a piece of tape on the other side of the race program leaking through). I just bought a program from the Marchbanks Road Races held Sept. 17-18, 1960. I'll post the entire program later but I wanted to share a cool map that I had never seen showing the layout and dimensions of the 9-turn, 1-8 mile course.

The course was the site of the first road races at the newly rebuilt and renamed Marchbanks Speedway. The weekend features 13 races in a variety of sports cars, open-wheel cars andmotorcycles. There even were two "Ladies" races. 

The program said Marchbanks was "the only course in the West where the spectators can see everything that goes on from one convenient location in the grandstand, the only course where the entire perimeter of the course has a solid guard rail to protect the spectators, and, of course, the only Western course with this exciting banking," a reference to the track's famed high-banked Turn 1. 

Knowing that this was one of the first races at the rebuilt track, the program refers to the track's lack of landscaping and "polishing up." "Experts are betting that it

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Video of 1968 Champ Car race at Hanford

A 10-minute "Car and Track" video of the Fall 1968 Champ Car race at Hanford has surfaced, and it provides some nice insight in to the track. 

I've been on the lookout for the long-rumored video of Champ Cars at Hanford, so it was thrilling for me to stumble across this footage on YouTube. 

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