A CRASH THEY WON’T SOON FORGET : At Riverside, It’s Already Part of the Lore, Mainly Because Victims Like Robinson Walked Away

When last seen at Riverside International Raceway, Chip Robinson was sailing through the air, out of control, in a 2,000-pound Jaguar race car--the result of a chance collision he knew nothing about until he was launched skyward.

Robinson had just passed Lyn St. James’ Mustang in Turn 1 and was headed toward the famous Riverside esses with clear sailing ahead.

“All I could think of was ‘Why did she hit me?’ he said in recalling the accident called by many veteran Riverside observers as one of the most spectacular and terrifying in the track’s 30-year history. “I never saw Doc. I never knew he was anywhere around.”

But it was Doc Bundy who triggered the three-car crash in which St. James’ car burned to the ground, Robinson’s took off like a tumbleweed and Bundy’s Corvette smashed into a retaining wall and burst into flames.

“Right after it happened, I got out and started looking for Lyn,” Robinson said. “I wanted to know why she had crowded me in that turn. I knew she knew I was there and I knew she knew it was a tight turn where you had to be extra careful.

“It wasn’t until later, when I saw it on video, that I saw Doc get in where he shouldn’t have been and bump Lyn into me. She had actually let me through, knowing I had the faster car. A second or two had passed after I went by when I felt a slight bump. The video showed that she barely caught me, but it was enough to get me sideways and the air got under the back end and I was like a paper airplane. The Jag just took off . . . and it was not a nice ride.”

All of the principals will be back at Riverside this weekend for another Los Angeles Times Grand Prix of Endurance, although because of a new streamlined schedule, they will not be on the track at the same time.

Robinson, 32, now the lead driver for Al Holbert’s IMSA championship Porsche 962, and Bundy, still in Rick Hendrick’s Corvette, will be in Sunday’s 500-kilometer (310.5 miles) Camel GP main event. St. James and the Mustang will be in a companion 300-kilometer (186.3 miles) race for GTO and GTU cars earlier in the afternoon.

Rather than retain negative thoughts about such a scary accident over which he had no control, Robinson came out of it with a positive feeling.

“It can’t help but build confidence in the equipment you’re driving, and the safety factors, when something like that happens and you walk away with nothing more than a good shaking up,” he said.

Miraculously, all three drivers were walking around shortly after the accident. None even went to the hospital. The cars were demolished.

Robinson has not been back to Riverside since, not even to test. He and Holbert will start work Friday when the track opens for practice. Several changes have been made since last year’s six-hour race, which was run on the full 3.25-mile course. This year the race will be approximately three hours long and will be run on the 2.54-mile short course that eliminates Turn 8 and cuts almost in half the long back straightaway.

Robinson applauds both changes.

“Riverside is a dangerous race track,” he said. “And what I’m saying has nothing at all to do with my accident last year. Any time you’re at a dangerous race track, the least amount of time you spend on it the better. Three hours is twice as good as six hours.

“I don’t know of any track in the country, probably the world, where conditions are as dangerous as they are up through the esses (a series of quick right- and left-hand turns between Turns 2 and 6) where people go off into the dirt and send up a cloud of dust that totally obscures a driver’s vision.

“You can be going 170 to 180 m.p.h. up there when almost without warning, you can’t see a thing. You don’t know what’s up ahead but you can’t stop, or even slow down much, for fear you’ll get rammed from behind.

“To me, it’s inexcusable that nothing has been done about it in all the years Riverside has been there. I don’t know of any other track with that problem. You would think they would plant grass, or pave it, or put in some sand pits, or something. It’s so potentially hazardous that it seems obvious to me that something should be done.”

Robinson went into the esses “blindfolded,” as he put it, in the 1985 race. He didn’t like it then and he doesn’t like facing the possibility again this year.

“Dangerous or not, I have to approach Riverside the same way I approach any race track,” Robinson said. “I have to go as fast as I can to win the race. That’s what Al Holbert hired me to do, to win. So far, this season has been a little disappointing.”

Most drivers, though, would be happy to have Robinson’s performance chart. Driving with Derek Bell, Al Unser Jr. and Holbert, he won the Daytona 24-hour race, and finished second in both the Sebring 12-hour and the Atlanta Grand Prix. After four races, he is the Camel GTP leader with 70 points to only 44 for James Weaver and 41 for Price Cobb, one of the defending champions in Rob Dyson’s Porsche in the Times Grand Prix.

“We were in a position to win three of the four races and we won only one,” Robinson said. “We led the most laps in two of the others, for nearly 11 of the 12 hours at Sebring before we lost the turbo and finished second. The points are fine, but the object is to win. Anything less than that is unacceptable.”

The shorter race may work against Robinson and the Porsche, however.

“If you go for the odds, I’d still pick our Porsche,” he said. “The Nissan and the Corvette will have a better chance than if the race were still six hours. The Porsches have the proven reliability, but in a sprint like Sunday’s race, one of the other makes might last long enough to win.”

Geoff Brabham and Elliott Forbes-Robinson won with the turbocharged Nissan in a street race in Miami and will be in the same car this week. It was the only IMSA race for GTP cars this season that a Porsche 962 has not won.

Although Robinson is driving for Holbert this year, he credits Bob Tullius and the Group 44 Jaguar team for helping him get that ride.

“I owe Bob Tullius a lot because he gave me the chance to show my abilities,” he said. “Without my driving the Jaguar, Holbert might never have considered me. Now I would like to show more of my ability and get an Indy car ride. That is my long-range goal.”

Holbert is preparing an Indy car Porsche to race in the final three races this year with an eye toward the Indianapolis 500 next year.

“Al, Porsche and Quaker State will decide who will drive the new car,” Robinson said. “I don’t know who they will want. I would certainly like the opportunity, but for now my goal is to win the Camel GTP championship. That is why I left Jaguar for Holbert’s team, because the Jaguar was only going to six or seven races and wasn’t going to run for the championship.”

Robinson won his first IMSA race in a Jaguar in the season finale last year at Daytona and then came back to win this year’s season opener, also at Daytona.

“I had already agreed to drive for Holbert when we went to Daytona for last year’s race,” Robinson said. “I’m really wanted to win that race with Bob (Tullius). It meant a lot to me after all the work we’d put in the car for two years.”

Holbert, who has won five IMSA championships, including the last two, agreed that watching Robinson race in 1985 and 1986 impressed him.

“Chip had the good fortune to work in a very disciplined system with Bob Tullius,” Holbert said. “He is a very talented American road racer, and that is the type of person we wanted in the car. He also lives close to our shops in Warrington, Pa., which makes him available for testing and adding input to the team.”

Robinson lives in Oldwick, N.J.

Robinson also drove for Tullius’ Group 44 team this year, in an Indy car, in the Long Beach Grand Prix.

“It was quite an experience,” Robinson said. “The crew had not only never worked on an Indy car, not one of them had ever seen an Indy car race. When the March was first delivered from Roger Penske, they had to get Penske to come down and show them how to start it.”

Despite that, Robinson was the fastest qualifier among the year-old Marches and in the race he finished sixth.

“I’m looking forward to a few more Indy car races, especially Meadowland, which is right near home, but that’s not my first priority,” Robinson said. “Right now I’m concentrating on winning as many Camel GT races as possible and Riverside is the first one. That’s the one I want most right now.”