This column will be the final one regarding Chicagoland racing history, covering area racing just before and after World War II and into the early 1950s.
Riverview Speedway and Raceway Park were the primary sites of open-wheel midget auto racing in the Chicago area just before the outbreak of WWII. Chicago’s Riverview, described as a “dustless” fifth-mile dirt oval,” was a busy place from 1936 through mid-summer 1942, holding weekly racing programs, sometimes even two nights a week.
The last race held there was on July 29, 1942 with area racing’s “favorite son” Tony Bettenhausen capturing the 100-lap finale.
Raceway Park near Blue Island opened Sept. 24, 1938 with Indianapolis’ Harry McQuinn winning the 40-lap inaugural midget contest. The small dirt track was a weekly stop for racing before and after WWII. Brothers Nick and Pete Jenin took ownership of the speedway for the ’47 season and hosted weekly midget racing through 1952. The track was the site of some of the first “short-track” stock-car racing programs held in the area in 1948.  
In June of 1939, Soldier Field on Chicago’s lakefront would be the scene of a five-race series held on a specially built board track laid out inside the huge sports arena.
Some 30 years later, Soldier Field would become the home of the Chicago Bears football team and, as the years progressed, mainstream Chicago would forget auto racing was ever held there.
Drivers came from all over the country to compete in the AAA-sanctioned, board-track races at the Field, which would be the scene of some spotty midget events until after WWII.  West-Coast racers Sam Hanks and Mel Hansen scored two feature wins apiece on the boards with Ronnie Householder, later the head of Chrysler’s factory racing program, winning the 100-lap finale on June 25.
The 124th Field Artillery Armory in Chicago was the scene of local indoor midget racing from the first event in 1934 until the final speed program was held there Dec. 8, 1940, when the facility became unavailable as America prepared to enter the Second World War. Indoor competition moved to the International Amphitheatre near the Chicago Stockyards with fall/winter action held annually there pretty much through 1954 with the exception of the War years.
As World War II came to a close, Raceway Park was perhaps the scene of the first post-war racing program held in the country, Aug. 25, 1945 with Bettenhausen, from nearby Tinley Park, winning the 25-lap event. Raceway and Soldier Field, now featuring a quarter-mile paved track, became the hotbeds of local midget racing, hosting weekly competition in 1946, ’47, ’48, ’49 and into the early 1950s. Both tracks would battle each other for a little supremacy with Raceway promoters having a plane fly over Soldier Field on race nights with a banner proclaiming, “Raceway Park, No Parading Here…It’s Real Racing!”
Hot-rod racing, introduced by Andy Granatelli, would make a brief, but successful run at Soldier Field, starting with three events in 1947. Big crowds would watch the midgets and the hot rods there from 1947-49. The big program of the year at Soldier Field was the Chicago Park District Police Benevolent race with tens of thousands of fans witnessing these races.
Gill Stadium on 87th Street on Chicago’s southeast side was the site of the very first short-track stock-car racing program held in the Chicagoland area late in 1948. Being nothing more than an added attraction to the weekly United Auto Racing Ass’n midget programs, the stock cars were no more than some older, used cars that Chuck Scharf and Eddy Anderson had brought in from a used-car lot.
The stock cars got their own program on Labor Day evening in ’48 with UARA midget racer Larry Johnson winning the first feature race. Another five stock car races were held at Gill in 1948 with other early stock events taking place at Raceway and at Harry Molenaar’s dirt half-mile in Schererville, Ind.
One of Raceway’s early contests was a 300-lap battle with midget ace Danny Kladis piloting a four-wheel-drive Jeep to the win.
Fans liked it and stock-car racing became more prominent in the “Windy City” area, eventually pushing the midgets out of the weekly venues just like in other parts of the country. Raceway Park and Soldier Field were the most active weekly tracks as racing moved into the 1950s. After a couple of idle years, Gill, renamed 87th Street Speedway, began to host weekly racing (stock cars) again in 1951.
An area mainstay through 2000, the now-paved Raceway Park would get the nickname “The World’s Busiest Track” as the speedway hosted 80 events, both midgets and stock cars, in 1951. Bud Koehler, who would capture 11 stock car titles during his career at the track, was the speedway’s stock car champ in 1949 and 1952 and the midget champ also in ’49 and 1951.
Back in the day, the Chicago area was a busy place for racing.