If you lived in the Riverside or Corona area in the 1970s and were into racing, or even if you weren’t but drove the 91 Freeway between the two cities, then undoubtedly you remember seeing the old Corona Raceway.
The Corona Raceway was in the hills north of the freeway, between Pierce and McKinley. While it wasn’t as famous as the Riverside International Raceway several miles to the northeast, it provided entertainment for auto racing fans for many years.
Of course, Corona was no stranger to auto racing. Some 60 years before the Corona Raceway, auto races were held on circular Grand Avenue – but that story has already been told in this column.
The idea for the Corona Raceway came from Felice and Laura Lipari, who owned a few hundred acres of land in what is now the border area between Riverside and Corona. According to Jim Short, a longtime sports writer for The Press-Enterprise, in 1967, the Liparis proposed a motorcycle race track on Buchanan, between Magnolia and the 91 Freeway. That was met with opposition, so they ditched that idea two years later and instead proposed an auto racing track farther north on the other side of the freeway.
The latter idea was approved and construction lasted for most of 1970.
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On Oct.18, 1970, the Corona Raceway opened to the public, sporting a quarter-mile oval track and a figure eight track inside the oval. There were 3,000 people in attendance that day, with “several near collisions, minor crashes and two major wrecks providing highlights for the day,” as reported by the Corona Daily Independent.
While the 145-acre facility provided racing entertainment for many, the facility was also a bone of contention. Almost from the beginning, there were complaints of noise from nearby residents. These complaints soon found their way into the legal system, and in April 1974, the raceway was hit with an injunction that was in effect for the remainder of its existence, it spelled out seasons and times the raceway could operate.
Countless races were held at the Corona Raceway over the more than 10 years it was in business. Many people have fond memories of racing there, spending many nights watching races, and of the people who, according to many, made the place like family. There is even a Facebook page devoted to memories of the raceway, “Corona Raceway Friends.”
As with many things, though, the raceway couldn’t last. The land became too valuable, and by 1982, the land had been sold to a developer and the raceway began operating on borrowed time. Soon, though, it closed, and the facility was converted to housing and some industrial uses. Still, the memories of the Corona Raceway live on.
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Thanks go to reader Laura Leonard Pearson Densmore for the idea for this article.
If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column about a local historic person, place or event, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at backinthedaype@gmail.com.
