Taste the dirt. Smell the burn. Hear the vroom VROOM of the menacing engine. Feel the metal crunch, the rumble in your bones. See the fervor, the fire, the yearn in the drivers’ eyes to be atop the standings.
No other sport can captivate the senses like motor racing. At Sycamore Speedway, in the bucolic fields of DeKalb County, stock cars turn into Baryshnikovs with motors, the clay track a stage.
The bleachers are dusty, empty of spectators now. But in a few hours there won’t be a square inch of space left, and the sound of stock cars flipping, screeching, bumping into walls and each other will be met with the roar of 1,500 people leaping to their feet, all at once.
Motor racing’s popularity is undeniable. It is the second most-watched sport on U.S. television behind professional football. A quarter of Americans call themselves NASCAR fans, and those 75 million people spend more than $2 billion a year on licensed sales, according to NASCAR.
If the Daytona 500 is the World Series of stock car racing, then Sycamore Speedway is the minor leagues. Everybody starts somewhere.
They are bankers and tow-truck drivers, pilots and high school freshmen, all seeking to satisfy their fix, to get that rush of blood to the head. From May through September, more than 125 drivers come here each Friday to compete at Spectator Racing Night. Anyone with a driver’s license, a car (no pick-up trucks or SUVs) and $25 can join in.
They say it’s a chance to let off steam from the workweek and, for a moment, live out their Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Danica Patrick fantasies.
Said Jimmy Stephens of Elmwood Park, last year’s Spectator Champion: “Friday nights, I’m on vacation.”
“You know how you’re on the road and you have somebody in front of you that hits your nerve, and you just wanna hit `em?” asked Hollie Powell, 29, of St. Charles, though everyone here calls her Fred. “Well, you can do that here.”
Fred lights a cigarette, the gravel crunching beneath her feet. She hangs around the pit area surrounded by teammates — they call them the Front Row Gang — and by stock cars that waits for its turn around the quarter-mile oval.
There are hundreds of cars with windows knocked out, numbers written in shoe polish and spray paint, front hoods crumpled into something you’d find in a junkyard.
Stickers and decals are affixed front, rear and on the sides of cars. “Support Our Troops.” Mickey Mouse giving the one-finger salute. The Confederate flag. Corporate sponsorships come from the likes of Ron’s Barber Shop in Sandwich, Ill.
These vehicles are dirty, worn, unsightly–but to their owners, like their own flesh and blood. What parent wouldn’t love the face of their child?
When Fred is not racing a car or driving for her tow-truck business, she is preparing for the next race. Fred is at the speedway from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. each Friday and Saturday, and during the week, she works on paint detail, tires, engines and whatever else her car needs.
She can tell you how the crankshaft rotates the rod bearing, pumping the connecting rod up and down the cylinder; how the pistons fire; how the intake becomes compression, becomes combustion and turns into exhaust … What a beautiful thing.
And there’s nothing more beautiful than when she steps on the track.
“When I’m out there, I don’t think about anything else,” she said. “I’m only worried about getting ahead of the car in front of me.”
Tonight, a minor injury will keep her from racing. Fred will instead take her place on the track’s infield with her tow truck ready.
“We’re doing a lot of that tonight,” she said, lighting another cigarette. “It’s Friday.”
A driver’s strategy can be articulated in three words: Go left, faster.
Two cars idle in a low growl, like tigers ready to pounce. With a crescendo, they take off. The stock cars race around the track in the time trials with the fastest times advancing. Anywhere between 17 and 19 seconds is enviable.
When a car enters a corner, it does not so much turn as it careens to the left at 65 m.p.h., then glides with diagonal momentum before straightening out and zooming off. This dance repeats itself every five seconds — pedal, turn, pedal, turn.
Inside the car during the race, there are no appropriate words, only abstract terms and metaphors.
Dennis Mann, on the night of his first race: “It’s oversized bumper cars.”
Fred: “I’ve never experienced anything like it. You think a lot, but you don’t at all.”
Stephens, reigning spectator racing champion at Sycamore: “It’s like drinking all night and not worrying about the hangover in the morning.”
Yet, as motor racing’s popularity in America continues to grow and Sycamore Speedway attracts a healthy attendance (nearly 50,000 fans last year), stock car tracks in the Chicago area are a dying breed. There was a time–its peak was in the ’60s–when amateur thrill-seekers could head to Soldier Field, O’Hare Stadium, Waukegan Speedway, Meadowdale Raceways in Carpentersville, the U.S. 30 Dragstrip in Gary and nearly 60 other tracks to live out their racing dreams.
In many cases, the land was converted to residential and commercial properties. Santa Fe Speedway in Willow Springs was one of the region’s more popular tracks, until 1999, when it was razed and turned into 220 homes and townhouses. Four years ago, Raceway Park in Calumet Park, with 63 years of stock racing history to its name, was converted into a strip mall and supermarket.
“It’s sad, because this is where racing starts,” said William Coulter, general manager of Sycamore Speedway. “This is where the guys learn.”
Most drivers who compete on Spectator Racing Night are amateurs and hobbyists. Those who move up compete in the late model and super late model divisions on Saturday nights. From there, drivers can move onto bigger tracks like LaSalle Speedway. Some will make it to the Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, where the NASCAR USG Sheetrock 400 race was held recently.
But there is no danger of Sycamore closing down soon. The track and surrounding land is family owned, and they have no intention of selling.
Fans have been coming here for 42 years. The food is cheap (two hot dogs will set you back $5), as are the drinks (16-ounce sodas in a souvenir cup are $1), and collisions are a given.
Twenty rows up the bleachers, 11-year-old Danielle Turner of Sycamore is wearing a button of her father next to his stock car. She is cheering wildly for dad, Dan Turner, driving Car 67.
Mom Kelly is just as vocal. The Turner family has come to the speedway every Friday during race season for the last three years.
“It’s fun to watch them spin out as long as nobody gets hurt,” Kelly said. “I pray for [my husband] every week. I pray that he’s OK and I pray that he wins.”
A car bumps into another; the crowd gasps. The smell of burnt rubber and fuel permeates the track, and dust kicks up, settling in eyes and between teeth.
From the top of the grandstand, one can see beyond the racetrack into pasture that stretches and stretches, until green meets blue and turns into sky.
Before long, the thrash ‘n’ crash, crowd-pleasing, race-to-end-all-races begins: the Figure 8 event.
Up to 35 cars race 10 laps in a figure 8 configuration. Bang-ups are practically guaranteed.
Dennis Mann is a bit high-strung from waiting. Tonight will mark his first race–he has not even taken a practice lap. A week ago, his boss at the bank suggested he enter his station wagon into Spectator Racing Night.
Seven days later and for less than $50, his 1985 Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon–like the one they drove in the National Lampoon movies–was lime green with neon orange lettering marking his car 47C.
“I’m expecting a little bump and grind,” said Mann, who lives five miles from the track. “I was told, don’t hit the brakes, just hit the gas.”
The red light turns green.
Mann circles the track, crossing in the middle, leaning to the left as he makes the turns. Already a front tire is flat. He then runs over a bumper that was dislodged from another car, one of many car parts that litter the track.
Several laps into the race . . . THWAP!
A car rams the Country Squire from behind. Mann’s vehicle sits motionless in the middle of the eight, smoke steaming from the front hood. Several long minutes later, his race already conceded, Mann gets Car 47C up and running.
“Now that I was nervous about,” Mann said afterward, giddy. “Ooooooooh man!”
Midnight approaches. The cars leave the racetrack one by one and all that remains is a layer of haze and the lingering few who stay for one last beer, one last souvenir checkered flag. The drivers stand in the hot dog line with their fans. Kids ask racers–bankers and mechanics by day, heroes by night–for autographs.
The stock cars are loaded onto flatbed trucks and hauled down Route 64. In the rearview mirror, headlights dot the night in a single file, fading as it goes back and over the ridge until you can’t see.
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The nitty-gritty
Although the number of clay racing tracks in Illinois has dramatically decreased in the last 30 years, several remain open, including raceways in Freeport, LaSalle and Sycamore, the closest clay track to Chicago. Here, the Sycamore Speedway details:
Season: Anybody with a regulation car can enter Spectator Racing Nights each Friday. Cost is $25 to enter. Qualified drivers can race in League Stock Car Racing each Saturday. All time trials begin at 7:15 p.m.; racing begins at 8 p.m. The season runs through Sept. 24.
To enter Spectator League: Call 815-895-5454 or visit www.sycamorespeedway.com to request a rulebook. Once your car meets the racing regulations, call back to register, or register on site Friday afternoon. Cost to enter (Pit Pass) is $25 each night.
General admission: $10; $3 for children 6-13; free for children under 6.
Directions: Sycamore Speedway is located on Route 64, 5 miles east of downtown Sycamore. From Chicago, take Interstate Highway 290 west to Interstate 88. Exit Illinois Highway 56 to Illinois Highway 47. Head north on Illinois 47 to Illinois Highway 64 (North Avenue). Turn left, heading west for 7 miles. Speedway will be on right side.
For more information: 815-895-5454 for registration, 815-895-5800 for weather.
— Kevin Pang
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Audio journal Visit chicagotribune.com to hear sounds of the Speedway.
kpang@tribune.com
