Watkins Glen, NY — The International Motor Racing Research Center has added historic materials from the now-closed World of Speed Motorsports Museum in Wilsonville, Oregon to its research archive.
Photo: IMRRC
About 25 cubic feet of photographs, programs and posters that document racing and race tracks in the Pacific Northwest made the cross-country voyage to arrive at the Center’s off-site storage facility in Montour Falls, New York on Dec. 8.
The newly-acquired collection greatly expands the geographic scope of IMRRC holdings as well as its drag racing collections. A casualty of the Covid crisis, World of Speed closed permanently in May.
During its five years of operation, the museum welcomed about 50,000 visitors annually and hosted events featuring motorsport legends Mario Andretti, Janet Guthrie and Herm Petersen, among others. It also ran accredited automotive classes for local high school students in conjunction with Clackamas Community College.
The IMRRC and 25 other cultural and educational organizations stepped up to provide new homes for the World of Speed’s collections and other assets as part of a formal dissolution process. Archives and artifacts temporarily orphaned by the World of Speed’s closure will remain in public repositories.
