PARNELLI JONES, The Man Being Honored At This Year — s Legends of Riverside III at the Riverside International Automotive Museum, was one of the most versatile drivers in the history of motor sports.
He won races in sprint cars and midgets, sports cars and off-road vehicles, and Indy cars and NASCAR stock cars. And he put that versatility on display many times at Riverside International Raceway, where his victories included the 1964 Los Angeles Times Grand Prix at the wheel of a Cooper-Monaco T61-Ford for Carroll Shelby, the 1967 NASCAR Motor Trend 500 in a Wood Brothers’ Mercury, and the 1970 SCCA Trans-Am in a Ford Mustang for Bud Moore.
“Winning the Trans-Am race there was one of the races that would highlight my career,” he said. “I had quick time and I was leading the race and came up to lap some back markers. Two of them tangled as I was going by and nailed me and knocked me the off course before turn 9. I went down behind Turn 9 and turned around and came back on, with a pucker bush hanging off it I guess.
“After that the spoiler didn’t want to turn so I kept hitting the berm in Turn 2 and actually had the right side of the car off the ground hoping it would make it turn and I came back and won the race. It was one where I gave it everything I had because I didn’t figure it would ever finish, it was vibrating and everything else. I caught George (Follmer), my teammate, and he missed a shift and I got by him and won the race.
“We also cinched the championship, too, with Ford.”
Jones, who also was a successful businessman and car owner, said “Riverside played a great part in my career, and for them (Legends of Riverside) to honor me for my record there is really an honor.”
Jones’s name surprisingly is missing from the results of the Indy car races at RIR, but with good reason.
“I quit running open cockpit cars after the ‘67 Indy 500, when I drove the turbine car,” he said, “and they (RIR) never really ran any Indy cars before that. We ran our cars as a car owner (with Vel Miletich) out there, but at that point I‘d quit running open cockpit cars.
“What happened is … You know the story with the turbine car. I was leading the race with three laps to go and the car quit. Well, right before it quit I was thinking winning again wasn’t going to be that great and maybe I should think about not running open cockpit cars, because they are dangerous. I didn’t retire. I just decided I’d run everything after that with closed cockpit cars.”
Jones was at RIR for the track’s opening weekend in 1958, running the sprint car and midget races on Friday night and the stock car race the next day. He had a hand in changing some of the topography of the track, too.
That happened when he and close friend and off-road racing legend Walker Evans were helping the late Mickey Thompson lay out a course for the SCORE Off-Road World Championships. Evans recalled that after trying out various standard sections of the course they decided to take their V8-powered race trucks onto the slope of ground that ran along the inside of the esses from Turn 3 to Turn 6. The result, Evans said, was that ice plant was flying everywhere – without the knowledge or permission of the late Les Richter, RIR’s president – and what became known as Thompson’s Ridge was created.
“This is a great honor,” Jones said of the March 25-27 Legends get-together. “Riverside played a great part in my career and for them to recognize me for my record there really is an honor.”
Dan Gurney, the original honoree, and Carroll Shelby, who was feted last year, will be at the Riverside International Automotive Museum to share in the celebration with their friend and sometimes rival. They’ll be joined by three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Unser, NASCAR Hall of Fame selection Bobby Allison and an honor roll of drivers who list racing at RIR among their career highlights.
In addition, the entire event is conducted in the museum showroom where a spectacular collection of meticulously-restored race cars is on display.
The Legends of Riverside is open to the public, but only 150 tickets will be sold. Those tickets, priced at $199 and good for all three days, may be purchased on the Internet, at www.LegendsOfRiverside.com, or by mail to the Riverside International Automotive Museum, 815 Marlborough Avenue, Suite 200, Riverside, Ca., 92507.
The event will get under way at 1 p.m. Friday, March 25, with a filmed tribute to the late Jim Clark, a Formula One and Indianapolis 500 winner. That evening there will be a 6:30 p.m. buffet dinner and a preview showing of the documentary film “Godspeed,” which chronicles the remarkable recovery of Parnelli and Judy Jones’s son, Page, from a near-fatal brain injury suffered in a sprint car racing accident at Rossburg, Ohio, on Sept. 25, 1994.
Both Page Jones and film maker Mary Leonard will be in attendance that night and the Page Jones Foundation will be one of the beneficiaries of the silent and live auctions of motor sports memorabilia conducted during the weekend.
Saturday’s program includes guest introductions and a medal ceremony, a look at “100 Years of Indy” through films and a panel discussion, and the gala tribute dinner for Parnelli Jones at 6:30 p.m. The celebration will conclude Sunday with a continental breakfast, a look at Racing Corvettes through films and discussion, and lunch.
For more information visit our web site, www.RiversideInternational.org, or telephone 951-369-6966.
