United States Auto Club midget racing returned to the area recently with events at Illiana Motor Speedway in Schererville, Ind., and at Rockford (Ill.) Speedway.   
On May 28, three divisions of USAC midgets visited Illiana with Regional, Ford Focus and Kenyon classes seeing action. The event was also to be the debut of USAC’s new Regional Pavement Sprint Car Series, but only three cars showed for the scheduled inaugural event, which forced officials to cancel the division’s races. 
Auston Harris, along with Brian Olson and Dillon Welch, were feature winners during Illiana’s Open Wheel Extravaganza. Harris was the winner of the 30-lap Ford Focus Midget Car Series main event, which was held on Illiana’s quarter-mile paved oval.  Harris, a 17-year-old Hayward, Calif., resident, became the first African-American to win a feature race in the history of the USAC organization, which has sanctioned thousands of races since its inception in 1956.  
“It’s an amazing opportunity to get to drive for Bob East,” said Harris after his victory and only second time in a midget.  “My guys couldn’t have given me a better car. They worked on it all night. It was probably the best race of my career.
“It’s a big honor,” added Harris about being the first African-American winner in the annals of USAC. “It’s kind of hard to say what it feel likes right now about being the first African-American to win.” 
Olson was the winner of the USAC Regional Midget Car Series main event, co-sanctioned by the United Midget Auto Ass’n, holding off the challenges of Bobby East throughout the 30-lap event on Illiana’s half-mile paved oval.  Welch was awarded first place for the USAC Kenyon Midget Car Series 30 lapper on the Illiana quarter after apparent winner, 13-year-old Dalton Armstrong was disqualified following a post-race technical inspection.
Don Kenyon is slated to present another USAC program at Illiana Aug. 6. Looking through the record books, Tony Bettenhausen won the first USAC midget feature held at Illiana with the Tinley Park Express, winning a 50 lapper on the then-dirt Illiana oval on Sept. 4, 1957.
Built for midget racing and holding its first event in 1948, the high-banked Rockford speed plant saw USAC midget racing return on May 18 with Olson, the Washington-state racer, winning the 50-lap USAC Mopar National Championship feature race.  It was Olson’s first “national” USAC win.
Olson guided his Esslinger Ford-powered Beast chassis midget to the victory.  A fabricator at Beast, Olson has won a number of “regional” midget headliners during his career, including the UMARA-sanctioned Illinois State Midget Championship race at  Grundy County Speedway in Morris in 2006. The paved Grundy oval was the scene of a hard crash for Olson last year, with Olson suffering a broken arm.
The quarter-mile paved Rockford oval hosted a USAC midget event for the first time since 1979 when Rich Vogler, an Illinois native, nailed down a USAC midget win on Aug. 29 of that year.
The latest Rockford USAC contest was part of promoter Dan Thiel’s Midget Maynia Tour which also included stops at the LaCrosse Fairgrounds Speedway (West Salem, Wis.) May 16 and at Wisconsin’s Slinger Super Speedway May 17. Dave Darland won at LaCrosse, while California’s Bradley Galedrige scored at Slinger.
Thiel’s four-race USAC midget tour was scheduled to wrap up with the seventh annual Mid-State Equipment Sue Thiel Memorial May 30 at Dodge County Fairgrounds in Beaver Dam, Wis., but the event was weathered out.