I just discovered a recent series of videos called:
“Zodiac: We Called Him Mr. Allen”
by the Seawater family and their experiences with Arthur Leigh Allen, prime suspect in the Zodiac murders.
In 1966 they went to the race tracks at Riverside with A.L.A. and meet the actor Steve McQueen.
I’ll try to compile photos and videos to see if this leads to somewhere and helps out. For now, most are not media from the actual event, but eventually, this might help filter the actual one. All this compilation also might help the Seawaters recall some details of their experiences (their location?).
1966 Riverside Races*
1966 Riverside drags
1966 Motor Trend 500 (Riverside)
1966 Riverside 500
A Novice works a Riverside Raceway Stock Car Race in 1967
Info: facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.227705594502834&type=3
“In July 1966, actor and racing driver Steve McQueen tested the car at Riverside in a test arranged by Skip Hudson. The test took place whilst Steve was testing six road going GT cars for the American magazine “Sports Illustrated”. In the August ’66 edition, he reported that the Lola T70 was the fastest car he had ever driven around the Riverside course, at times reaching speeds of up to 157mph.
In 1967 the car was with Hollywood actor and racing enthusiast, James Garner. This was the year after he had starred in the film “Grand Prix” as the racing driver “Pete Arron”. Keen to continue the racing experience, Garner set up a driver’s school at Riverside and did two drivers school events in preparation for racing the car, when filming commitments allowed. Garner’s racing ambitions though were scuppered by his employers, MGM Film Studios, who placed a complete ban on Garner driving racing cars. SL70/14 was placed in storage but was leased for use as a camera car in the 1970 television film “The Challengers” where it was driven by Bob Bondurant. The car then went back into storage at Charlie and Kerry Agapiou’s workshops where it remained until bought by Robin Spurrier in 1973. See Less”
This day he had a blue car with a number 9, and a blue helmet with blur uniform with a Firestone logo. In case you came across photos like this.
Info: https://www.motortrend.com/features/archive
Over the years, we’ve invited a variety of racers and celebs to take the wheels of our test cars and share their impressions. Sports Illustrated did the same thing for its August 8, 1966, issue when the editors asked Steve McQueen to come to Riverside International Raceway to play road-tester-for-a-day with eight new sports cars. And what a roundup: a big-block Corvette, a Ferrari 275 GTS, an Aston Martin, a Jaguar E-Type, a unique new six-cylinder Porsche called 911, and a Shelby Cobra 427 among them.
McQueen was an accomplished sports-car racer and more than qualified to offer the opinion of an enthusiast, not just of a movie star. Wife Neile came along and brought her camera. The result was a few yellow boxes of Kodachrome slides, none of which has ever been published. “I didn’t know much about the cars, and I’m not that great a photographer,” she recalls. The former may be true, but we dispute the latter. Her snaps have a wonderful, human quality-although the fact that her mega-magnetic husband knew how to work in front of a camera assuredly helped.
*(522 views)
Work in progress post. I’ll keep updating it.
