I was fortunate to be part of Chicago short-track racing in the early 1950s, and it remains the toughest, most entertaining competition I’ve seen.  
Drivers could race nearly every night of the week, and they developed high degrees of skill in setting up cars and an aggressive, give-no-quarter Chicago driving style. Andy Granatelli’s early promotions at Soldier Field pioneered the way for stock-car popularity, but Raceway Park in Blue Island became the keystone Chicago track, running as many as four nights a week. The pits were always jammed.  
I did the announcing at 87th Street Speedway, a former baseball park, in the heart of the south side. Santa Fe Speedway, where I also announced during its first season, offered dirt racing in suburban Willow Springs. O’Hare Stadium, near the airport, came along in 1956.  
Happy Dan Walters was among the journeyman drivers on those tough Chicago tracks. He was good enough to always have a competitive ride. Walters got his nickname after he crashed a motorcycle and skidded a couple of hundred feet on his chin, wiping out most of his jaw and leaving him with a sort of Andy Gump look and a constant grin — hence, “Happy Dan.”  
Walters is gone now, but he was part of a wonderful adventure when a crew of Chicago short trackers took a Packard to Daytona in the early 1950s to go late-model racing on Bill France’s beach-road course.
Walters hooked up with Hank Salat, an old-time Hammond, Ind., mechanic, and they journeyed south that February to try their hand at NASCAR racing. Salat was something of a genius with Packards and built some very fast cars for the Chicago short tracks. The small Packard Clipper fastback with the 356-inch, nine-main-bearing engine was fearsomely fast and rugged.
For the beach-road events, the late models qualified through timed straightaway runs on the beach (a smart Bill France idea to tie modern racing to early beach-record attempts). Walters timed the Packard in the middle of the field, but he came back elated, saying, “We got the wrong gear in this thing! I was all wound out before I got into the timing trap.” They changed gears, and although they couldn’t time again, the car was noticeably faster, and they were excited about their chances in the Sunday race.
Here’s the story of that beach-road race, as I recall Walters telling it many years ago. “We started in the middle of this big pack, and I just tried to stay with them and be careful through the north turn,” Walters said. “When I got southbound on the asphalt, I floored it, and that thing really took off. In a half mile the speedometer was pegged at 120, and I was still accelerating. The whole car was shaking. I could hardly hold on. I had never gone so fast in my life. I was thinking, ‘Wow, we’ve got a chance to win this thing,’ when all of a sudden, ‘Bang, bang, bang,’ something hits me in the rear. I look in the mirror, and there’s Dick Rathmann in one of them Hudson Hornets, motioning for me to get out of the way.”
The Packard broke an axle. They trailered it home and went back to the Chicago short tracks, savoring their adventure in the big time.  
The beach-road course was replaced by Daytona Int’l Speedway, and today the Chicago short tracks are all gone, recalled only by great memories like Happy Dan’s story.