News — SHELBY RACING IN A MASERATI

Riverside International Motor Raceway, as it was first called, opened September 21, 1957, barely ready for action after my father paid dearly for its construction when initial funding dried up in the track build’s earliest stages. It was a blistering hot race weekend, and Shelby fired up the 450S for practice on the brand new 3.275-mile road circuit. Not through his first lap, he lost traction in a sandy corner and stuffed the big Maser front end first into an embankment. Shelby’s face required 70 stitches and the Maserati’s nose needed much more than Landaker’s mallet. The 450S and Shelby...