Legends of Riverside II Event in the Home Stretch Tickets Still Available

Riverside, Calif. February 19, 2009: The second edition of the Legends of Riverside Film Festival and Gala is just over one month away (March 26-28) and, exactly like last year, ticket sales have been quite brisk. “Word’s spread fast about the kind of experience that our guests had with us last year,” said organizer Doug Magnon. “We put together a mixture of people’s all-time heros, racing movies, great food, some 20 million dollars worth of historic competition cars, and then only sold a limited number of tickets. That turned out to be a pretty darn good recipe for fun and friendships.”

This annual event is a “reunion” of sorts, bringing together the people and machines that competed at the legendary road racing track located on the outskirts of Riverside. The Riverside track was only in operation for 31 years total, but thousands upon thousands of fans flocked to the 3-mile ribbon of asphalt where every famous name in the sport competed in sports, formula, off-road, champ cars, karts, midgets, stock cars, sprint cars and motorcycles.

Over the years the track hosted every imaginable category of motorsports from international Formula One to wild Baja-style off-road competition … Dick Wallen’s 346-page book on the track called it “The Palace of Speed” (and it was!).

For the 2010 renewal of this event, the honored guest is none other than the “snake charmer” himself, Carroll Shelby. Known for his raucous, no-holds-barred Cobra race cars, and for his victories as both a driver and a car entrant in the grueling 24 Hours of LeMans; to call Shelby a “Legend” is to call the Mona Lisa “a painting”. In Japan, they’d call Shelby a “living national treasure”. One of the true highlights of the three-day event will be a gala dinner with Shelby as the guest of honor. Staged as a fund-raising event by the Museum, one of the beneficiaries of the motorsport memories weekend will be the Carroll Shelby Foundation. Shelby’s foundation works with children who are battling life-threatening illnesses and has recently expanded it’s mission to fundraise to help children with scholarships and educational programs in the areas of automotive study. “This is an exciting time for us,” Shelby, president of the foundation, said. “We’ve been trying for years to find ways to broaden our mission to continue helping kids later in life.” (Shelby started the foundation in 1991 after receiving a life-saving organ transplant.) In addition to Carroll Shelby, over 40 other legendary competitors including Bruce Kessler, George Follmer, Howden Ganley, Denise McCluggage, Dan Gurney, John Morton, Scooter Patrick, Davey Jordan, Jerry Grant , Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Bob Bondurant, and Tony Adamowicz who are all scheduled to be on hand at the event.

“Our ratio of guests to racing stars, and other famous racing faces is about 3 to 1,” Magnon indicated. “This event isn’t about huge crowds and long distances separating our paying guests and guests of honor. This is an up-close-and-personal pit area experience, not nose-bleed and binoculars seats in some far-off grandstands.”

Put on under the auspices and staged at the new Riverside International Automotive Museum, a trio of local charities will benefit from this special event. The Museum is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and was founded by Magnon and his father Ray to carry on the memory of the great race track and to celebrate the people who’s heroics on the course made it the legendary place that it’s so fondly remembered by so many today.

Again, the Riverside event will see a number of special awards presented over the weekend. Included in the presentations will be the 500cc Club of America’s Harry Morrow Award, the Lee Iacocca Award, and a new award created especially for the Riverside event to commemorate the memory of Peter Bryant the motorsports designer/ author who, sadly, passed away two days after last year’s event. The Bryant award, named for his book “Can Am Challenger” will recognize past excellence in engineering and dedication to motorsports.

A full schedule of events for all three days is available on the event website: www.legendsofriverside.com as are the remaining event tickets. The Museum is open Wednesday through Saturday and is located in northeast Riverside at 815 Marlborough Street (Museum phone: 951-369-6966).