The 1963 Motor Trend 500 at Riverside International Raceway was held on January 20, 1963, as an early-season NASCAR Grand National event and the inaugural running of the race under that sponsorship name. The 500-mile contest covered 185 laps on the challenging 2.7-mile road course, taking nearly six hours to complete due to its demanding layout with elevation changes, tight turns, and long straights that tested both drivers and equipment.
Dan Gurney scored a breakthrough victory in the No. 28 Holman-Moody Ford, marking his first NASCAR Grand National win. Starting from the pole, Gurney led a significant portion of the race and held off the field to finish with a margin of about 36 seconds. A.J. Foyt would finish second followed by Troy Ruttman, Fireball Roberts, and Bobby Johns. The race featured a mix of stock car regulars like Fireball Roberts and Ned Jarrett alongside road-racing stars and crossovers, including A.J. Foyt making his NASCAR debut and Dave MacDonald finishing 12th in a Holman-Moody Chevrolet.
This event highlighted Riverside’s unique role in NASCAR as a western road course that attracted diverse talent and added variety to the mostly oval-based schedule. Gurney’s win foreshadowed his dominance at the track—he would go on to win the Motor Trend 500 five times total (1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1968). The race helped elevate NASCAR’s profile on the West Coast during the early 1960s.
