Cold, wintry nights in these parts has given a little time to do some research on some interesting facts about Chicago-area racing. 
Chicago, of course, was the site of the first automobile race held in this country on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1895.  Six automobile pioneers “raced” their entries from Chicago to Evanston, Ill., and back, a distance of 52.5 miles.  Piloting a “horseless carriage” built by his brother, Charles, Frank Duryea was the first driver to complete the run over the snow-covered road course of sand, dirt, clay, macadam and wood block.
Long before the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, Chicago-area race meets were held at the old Washington Park, Hawthorne and Harlem horse tracks.  The Harlem facility was located in the vicinity of 12th Street and a block west of Harlem Avenue and held a 24-hour race in July of 1907.  The Western Stock Chassis Races were held on the roads between Crown Point, Cedar Lake and Lowell, Ind., on June 18-19, 1909.  The Chicago Automobile Club-presented event saw Joe Matson win the Indiana Trophy and Louis Chevrolet capture the Cobe Cup.
The big, two-mile Speedway Park wooden-board track put Chicago “on the map” as far as automobile racing went in 1915.  Located in Maywood on the acreage that is now the Edward J. Hines, Jr. Veterans Hospital, the speedway operated through 1918. 
From 1910 until 1920, with the exception of the World War I years — 1916-1918 — an eight-mile track (actually eight miles, 2,499 feet) of dirt, and a line-up of adrenaline-fueled road racers brought in droves of people to Elgin, Ill., for the Elgin National Road Races with entries battling for the coveted Elgin National Watch Company Trophy. The final checkered flag was waved in Elgin in 1933 when the road race was revived one last time as part of the World's Fair in Chicago.
The 1920s saw racing action take place at Hammond, Indiana’s Roby Speedway, which was just across the Illinois/Indiana state line, 100 yards or so from Chicago city limits.  North Shore Polo Fields and the Hawthorne track were other popular area speed venues.  Located at Lincoln Avenue and Peterson Road in the city, North Shore half-mile saw local-driving aces Cliff Woodbury and Esthan Wenneston as frontrunners.      
A couple of long-forgotten dirt tracks from the 1920s are Stanton Speedway and Thornton Speedway.  The Stanton half-mile dirt track was on the property of the Thomas Stanton Farm near Butterfield Road and Route 53 in Glen Ellyn.  Legendary dirt-track star Gus Schrader won a 15-mile contest there on June 29, 1924.  The Thornton oval was located at 175th and Halsted streets.  The Chicago Colored Race Drivers Ass’n put on a series of races there in 1925.  The following year, Charles “Dutch” Baumann won a main event there during a late-June date, that also featured greyhound dog racing as part of the day’s activities.
Moving into the 1930s, the Roby “mile” was the scene of a bunch of dirt-track action, including an AAA-sanctioned National Championship “Indianapolis Car” race on June 19, 1932.  Los Angeles racer W.H. “Stubby” Stubblefield won the 100-mile battle over Al Gordon and “Wild Bill” Cummings.  The Evanston Motor Speedway, near Lincoln and Devon avenues, would be a busy place in the 1930s, hosting both “big car” stock car and midget events.  Chicago racing stars Jimmy Snyder, Emil Andres and Cletus “Cowboy” O’Rourke all cut their racing teeth there.  By the summer of 1937, Roby and Evanston were out of business.
Considered by an early motorsports reporter “the most thrilling course in the country,” the Wasco Race Track was a peculiar-shaped half-mile dirt track with a dog leg.  Located about six miles west of St. Charles, the Wasco speed plant was laid out in a wooded area and operated for a short time in the 1930s. Wasco was among several short-term speedways and fairground horse tracks that hosted racing in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Cook County Fairgrounds half-mile oval, located at North Avenue and River Road, saw racing in the 1930s until 1940.  Although located in Hammond, Ind., another Hoosier- state oval — the Hammond Raceway — was new to the Chicago-area racing scene in 1937.  The five-eighths-mile banked dirt track would provide plenty of thrills during its time in business, which lasted into 1942.
Subsequent columns will delve into the history of area midget and stock-car racing, during the “glory days” of these segments of the sport.