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Sunday
Jun102012

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. 

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