| Riverside, February 2-3
1963 -- 3
The A-B Production car race at Riverside
in February, 1963, is legendary. Dave
MacDonald and Ken Miles appeared
in new Shelby-entered Cobras
and ran away from a strong field of equally new Corvette Stingrays.
Miles stopped in the pits while running 2nd, had a drink of water, then
charged back into the race and passed all the Stingrays again!
| Here's Miles in his very early Cobra.
As the 1963 season continued, the Cobras
sat lower, wore progressively wider tires, and sprouted huge fender flares
to cover them. |
 |
| Ron Cummings remembers this race:
"After jumping into an early lead, Miles
pitted for no reason. He let the entire field go by before re-entering
the race. The crowd was jumping up and down as he stunned the Chevrolet
drivers by easily passing the entire field to finish second behind MacDonald's
other team Cobra. The Corvette people were completely demoralized." |
 |
| A month later, March 2-3, 1963, the
same group of "Big Production" cars appeared at a short course using the
parking lot at Dodger Stadium.
Dave MacDonald and Ken Miles again finished
1-2 in factory-entered Cobras.
In this photo, Dick Guldstrand in Stingray
#56 leads Bob Bondurant in
#614 through one of the tight chicane-like corners on the 1.3 mile course.
Behind the first pair, an out-of-shape Ronnie
Bucknum in the ex-MacDonald Stingray #00 leads #6 Paul
Reinhart and #298 Ken Miles in the super-fast Cobra.
Some of these drivers (and others) got
together in 1991 for a
"Corvette Reunion". |
Next: More
Dave Ridenour
Back to: Riverside,
February 1963 -- 2
Back to: New
Homepage
|