CHICAGO — After watching and napping during some recent Sunday TV races, I was all fired up to go to a local track for some evening stock-car racing, only to realize that no local track presents Sunday racing anymore.  
Those “good old days” are long gone with the demise of Raceway Park in 2000 and Santa Fe Speedway in 1995 pretty much ending Sunday-night racing in these parts. Nowadays, a Chicago-area race fan has to drive about two hours north to Wisconsin’s Slinger Super Speedway to watch paved stock-car competition or venture south, traveling to the Vermilion County Speedway in Danville for some dirt-track action.
Years ago, Raceway Park, located near Blue Island, would host stock-car racing sometimes four nights a week, including Sundays. The likes of 11-time track champion Bud Koehler, Bob Pronger, Bill Van Allen, Ray Young, Jerry Kemperman and others would battle on the shorter-than-a-quarter-mile paved oval. Some Sundays would even feature special events, including the track’s popular Monza Classics that would feature four 30-lap features in one night.
Santa Fe Speedway, the Chicago area’s most popular dirt track, held Sunday racing seemingly dating back to when the track first opened in 1953. Matter of fact, Indiana’s Kenny Boyer won the first stock-car feature held at the speedway on Sunday, May 31, 1953. A few weeks later, another Indiana invader, Bill Clemans, won the track’s first 100-mile contest on Sunday, June 21.
During his departures from Raceway Park, Van Allen, along with fellow multiple-time track champions Dick Nelson, Jim O’Connor, Tony Izzo and a host of others, would provide Sunday night thrills at “the Fe.” During most of its years of featuring weekly stock-car racing on clay, Santa Fe would present racing every Saturday and Sunday. In 1991, weekly Sunday-night racing fell off the Santa Fe calendar.
Through the years, other Chicago-area speed venues would host Sunday-night racing. O’Hare Stadium, torn down after the 1968 season ended, was a Saturday night/Sunday night track during most of its 13-year run. Located south of Chicago’s famed O’Hare Int’l Airport, the quarter-mile paved track featured a unique style of racing — convertibles only — during 1963, 1964 and 1965. Still years from becoming a NASCAR frontrunner, Fred Lorenzen was O’Hare late-model champion in 1958.
Northern Illinois’ Waukegan Speedway also was a Saturday/Sunday track during busy seasons in the 1960s and ’70s. The track opened as a dirt oval in 1949, paved before the 1969 campaign and, finally, turned back to dirt for the 1978 season. The last race was held on Sept. 15, 1979.
Still in business today, Illiana Motor Speedway in Schererville, Ind., seemed always to be hosting Sunday afternoon racing, dating back to its first stock-car program on Nov. 14, 1948. Paved prior to the 1962 season, Illiana would see Johnny Rutherford win an IMCA sprint-car main event, the first feature race held on the new pavement, on Sunday afternoon, May 13, 1962. Sunday afternoon stock-car racing in the 1960s and ’70s would be held with one never knowing who might show up for the competition on the half-mile speedway.
Mance Park Speedway, located in the western suburb of Hodgkins, came into existence as a dirt oval in 1953 but was paved prior to the 1955 season. Sunday afternoons were quite often on the speedway’s schedule. Mance Park closed in 1960, after holding its final stock-car program in early September.
Midgets, and later stock cars, raced at Chicago’s Soldier Field. Marshall Lewis won the very first midget program held at the huge lakefront arena Sunday afternoon, May 19, 1935. The final stock-car event was captured by Sal Tovella on Sunday evening, June 9, 1968.
Chicago’s Riverview Speedway, located on Addison Avenue just west of Western Avenue, opened for the first time in 1936 with Sunday-night racing being part of its yearly summer schedule. Midget racing would take place at the dirt speedway through 1942.
Sunday-afternoon racing was always on the schedule for the old one-mile dirt Roby Speedway in Hammond, Ind. From the first race program in 1920 until the final race held in 1936, Roby was the site of Sunday racing. Roby closed forever after the final program was presented Sept. 20, 1936, with Rex Mays grabbing top honors in a 50-mile “big car” chase.
A year later, Hammond Raceway would present Sunday-afternoon races. “Big car” races would be featured at the five-eighths-mile dirt oval. Midget and early stock-car races would also be presented at the track through its final season of competition — 1942.
Old-timers quickly recollect about those hot and dusty Sundays because Sunday racing was something special.