once been a turn announcer for NASCAR's broadcasting arm Motor Racing Network plus the raceway's radio network (along with Ralph Lawler) and many felt racing would long be a part of the Riverside landscape. During this time, Riverside County and the newly incorporated Moreno Valley area had a growth spurt; new residents started enclosing in on the raceway and became hostile about the raceway's noise levels but, furthermore, the land the raceway was on was becoming more and more valuable such that the track was almost able to survive. However, with protests from both residents and environmentalists, Riverside's continued existence was impossible. (During this time, track president Dan Greenwood, who succeeded Richter in 1983, was trying to search for Riverside's replacement, Perris and Corona.) 1988 was the final year of professional racing for Riverside. On June 12, 1988, NASCAR held its final Winston Cup race at RIR; the 1988 Budweiser 400 was won by Rusty Wallace (a caution flag, later red flag, was out for Ruben Garcia when he came off Turn 9 and lost control of his car and hit a wall, barely missing the grandstands, on lap 29), later on SCORE International held its last race on August 14, 1988. In 1989, the track was modified from turn 7 to near the dogleg after a section of the backstretch and turn 7A near the Bosh Bridge was severed for Towngate Blvd. and Eucalyptus Ave., the modified track was called Riverside Regional Raceway and continued to be used for club events. After 31 years of racing, Riverside closed on July 2, 1989, with the final Cal-Club event (which, ironically, ended the way it started with the death of racer Mark Verbofsky on July 1, 1989). Duda (along with Homart Development Company) turned the "House that Dan Gurney built" (which had him quoting in an episode in SpeedWeek "I'm glad to see it gone") into a shopping mall which opened in 1992. The Moreno Valley Mall at Towngate is on the northern end of the former raceway property and homes now occupy what was the southern end of the racetrack. In a 1994 aerial view of RIR, the remains of Riverside's Turn 9, the original backstretch, the 1969 aligned backstretch from the kink to the entrance to Turn 9, part of the pit entrance and front stretch wall were still visible along with the Administration Building. However, today nothing is