Sports Car Race, Pacific Raceways 1963

8mm film of the 1963 United States Road Racing Championship, July 20-21 1963. Features lots of shots of vintage race cars including Ferrari GTOs, some of the first Cobras and others. This was shot by a friend of my parents, Tex Steere, who asked me to help convert it for him and has graciously allowed me to post it on YouTube.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• auto
• racing
• sports
• cars
• Ferrari
• Cobra
• historic
• vintage

[RallyDude1515]

WOW! i cant thank you enough for posting this! where was this track located? i'm guessing its all rubble today?

[solracer66]

The track is Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington and is still in operation today. The track was leased back in the late 60's and became Seattle International Raceway. Over the years the leaseholder did the bare minimum to keep the track up, so little that the SCCA magazine included it in their "Ghost Tracks" series. The lease ran out in 2001 however and the current owners changed the name back and have slowly been improving it but the course itself is still pretty much the same.

[Vintagedude]

Incredible footage- how did you find this? Do you have more to post? Thanks for posting!

[solracer66]

A friend of my parents had this film and asked me to convert it to video for him. I did so and he allowed me to post it to YouTube since he's a little web-challenged. All the racing footage I have is posted to the various videos on my account, however I do have a lot more videos of old cars I might post at some point.

[Interserie72]

A wonderful track! This film is an important part of motorsport history.

[Scumacher2008]

@RallyDude1515 Yes and there's also a Karting track there, and they installed a dragstrip. I don't think the dragstrip was original...

[irnieracing]

Look at the huge crowds.. i haven't seen anything like that in my racing days.

[revvhard]

WOW! Thanks so much for uploading. I love watching old videos from Paciifc Raceways. This is the oldest I've seen. Thanks again!

[manxcafe]

@DaveMacDonaldNet : Oh At least one person and car was missing from the Kent race that weekend: "Hap" Richardson and his XK120 Jaguar, anyone remember him? Competed in USRRC, SCCA, SCRAMP, was a close friend and neighbor of my Dad, who shared his passion of racing by taking us to Riverside, Ontario Motor Speedway to name a few, lost Hap in the 90s, miss him a lot. Thanks for the memories.

[manxcafe]

@DaveMacDonaldNet : I concur great video, you are correct on Don Wester in #60, I was hired by Don and worked at his Porsche+Audi Dealership for many years, #60 was an RS61 formerly Bob Donner's that Don bought in 1963 for the season, the car was a regular presence at the store. You wouldn't believe all the places they held races back then in California, it was certainly a different time (now) unusual locations like the old Candlestick Park & Stockton. He moved on to a 904 for 1964. Thanks!

[DaveMacDonaldNet]

Great video. What you have is definately two seperate races ... maybe 3. First race is the USRRC GT at Kent on 7/21/63. Dave MacDonald won that race in Shelby Cobra #97 followed by Ken Miles & Bob Holbert for a 1-2-3 Cobra sweep. Second race is later that same day and was won by Pedro Rodriguez in #448. Don Wester in #60 finished 1st in U2L & 3rd overall. Cobras finished 4-5-6 in this race. The end of the video may be more footage from that second race or another later in the year. Nice

[iandukeman]

WOW is right.. THANK YOu for the video.

born and raised in Renton/Kent, I have been to this track many times and only recently begun to drive it. The historical/nostalgic feeling of this film is humbling

[pencilneck22]

The track is pretty much like you see it here but with more trees on the upper part. At the 1:49 mark, there is a white Corvette going through turn 5a, that part has changed some. 5a is now more of a turn and that changed 5b and 6 a little bit too. More skill is needed now to get through that complex quickly and back up the hill to 7 and 8. They do vintage events there four times a year and the big one is the weekend of July 4th. See this stuff racing again.