Racing Magnet

Joe Gibbs, coach of the Washington Redskins and owner of NASCAR Nextel Cup cars driven by Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte, likes to tell about walking through the garage area and hearing someone say, “Hi, Coach.”

Then, turning to acknowledge the greeting, hearing, “No, not you!”

Instead, the greeting is intended for Les Richter, known coast to coast in racing circles as the coach. An eight-time all-pro linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams, Richter became one of the more influential men in motorsports history, even though he never drove a race car, turned a wrench or owned a team.

When it came to administration, though, Richter always seemed to score, guiding Riverside International Raceway to national prominence, laying the groundwork for today’s NASCAR, and overseeing the development of California Speedway.

For his contribution to racing’s landscape, literally and figuratively, Richter will be given the fifth annual Eagle One-Shav Glick Award, a symbol of distinguished achievement in motor racing by a Californian. He will receive his trophy Sunday before the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway.

“He, more than anyone but Bill France Sr., was responsible for the expansion of NASCAR,” said Glick, longtime motorsports writer for The Times. “After they established NASCAR on the West Coast, the series expanded elsewhere. Riverside became a national and international racing institution under Richter’s stewardship.”

Richter joins previous honorees Dan Gurney, Wally Parks, Parnelli Jones and Rick Mears.

Unlike them, Richter never raced. In fact, until he was working in it, he knew nothing about motorsports. He grew up in Fresno, had a College Football Hall of Fame career at California -- where he graduated with a degree in business administration and was class valedictorian -- and was the first player selected in the NFL draft of 1952, only to be traded by the then-Dallas Texans, a one-season team on its way to becoming the Baltimore Colts, to the Rams for 11 players.

“Nobody’s that dumb,” said Richter when first told of the 11-for-1 deal, which turned out to be a lopsided trade in favor of the Rams, Richter’s being a Pro Bowl player in eight of his nine seasons.

Richter agreed to play for the Rams under certain conditions.

“I had to have a job where I’d be paid year-round,” he said of those low-paying pro football days. “So the Rams were practicing at the University of Redlands, and the coach got me on the phone to talk to the [team] owners. They were happy to have me, blah, blah, blah, and they wanted me to go over the mountains to Riverside toward March Air Force Base.

“They said, ‘We’d like you to go across the way and see if there’s a racetrack,’ and what did it look like?”

The group was thinking about buying it.

Richter made the trip on Highway 60, two lanes at that time, saw a piece of property that looked as if it had a racetrack and reported back that it was there.

“They were very pleased,” Richter said. “They said, ‘You can run the racetrack. This is the job we promised you.’ ”

He became executive director of the nine-turn road course in 1959.

“I was just trying to find out if the cars went this way or that away,” he said.

He became a hands-on president and general manager in 1961, then got an invitation in 1962 from NASCAR founder Bill France, who asked him to come to Daytona “and we’ll show you how to run a racetrack,” Richter recalled. “They wanted identification with the West.”

The next January, Riverside played host to its first NASCAR race on the West Coast, the Motor Trend 500, won by Gurney, who went on to win five NASCAR races at Riverside.

“He was a big influence, and I was proud to have No. 48 on my car,” Gurney said of Richter and the number that was worn by Richter with the Rams.

The track was profitable under Richter’s direction and he played a pivotal role in its $3.6-million improvement plan in 1969. Known as “the Palace of Speed,” it was the scene of nearly every kind of racing, Indy cars, Formula One, sports cars, stock cars, Trans-Am, Can-Am ...

A personality clash with new owner Fritz Duda brought change in 1983. Richter left and was named a vice president for NASCAR.

“What do you want me to do?” Richter asked France, who responded, “You know enough about auto racing now, what do you want to do?”

Richter spent the next two years between Daytona Beach, Fla., and Washington, D.C., lobbying on behalf of NASCAR.

“Uncle Sam wanted more money,” Richter said, “and as life has it, it worked itself out.”

He, Roger Penske and Jay Signore created auto racing’s all-star event, the International Race of Champions, in 1974; and Richter remains chairman of the board of that series.

He became executive vice president of competition for NASCAR in 1986, and in 1992 was named senior vice president of operations for NASCAR. One of the final, signature marks left on Richter’s watch was getting NASCAR into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“Les Richter has been an important part of NASCAR for many, many years,” said Bill France Jr. “His efforts in making NASCAR successful have been as important as anyone.”

Richter returned to Southern California in 1993, chosen by Penske to oversee the construction of California Speedway on the historic Kaiser Steel Mill site in Fontana, not far from where he had put Riverside Raceway on the map.

He was grand marshal for the two-mile state-of-the-art speedway’s first Winston Cup race in 1997, the California 500 presented by NAPA. Every winner, beginning with Jeff Gordon, has received the Les Richter Trophy.

“He absolutely is a legend, and is very modest about that, everything he accomplished in his life,” said Bill Miller, California Speedway president. “If you want to meet people in the industry, stand in the garage next to Les. You don’t need to walk around, you don’t need to move. They come to him.

“That’s when you realize, in the garage here or Daytona, every single person, it’s ‘Hey, Les! Hey, Coach!’ ”

Richter, 73, is vice president of special projects for International Speedway Corp., a NASCAR company, and works out of an office at California Speedway.

“I always kept a home here,” Richter said. “I was afraid if I didn’t work responsibly in Daytona, I could always come back to this home.

“I didn’t think I’d be what they wanted.”

Turned out, he was everything anyone needed.

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First-Rate Crew

Winners of the Eagle One-Shav Glick Award, given for distinguished achievement in motor racing by a Californian:

*--* * 2000: Dan Gurney * 2001: Wally Parks * 2002: Parnelli Jones * 2003: Rick Mears * 2004: Les Richter

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