HAMMOND, Ind. — With the 106th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge a few days away, part of the history of The Greatest Spectacle in Racing was influenced by numerous northwest Indiana/Calumet region speedways.
Roby Speedway, Hammond Raceway, Lake County Fairgrounds in Crown Point and Illiana Motor Speedway in Schererville, Ind., were speed playgrounds that drivers tested their skills as they dreamed of racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Bordering the Chicago city limits, Roby Speedway, which was located just west of Indianapolis Blvd., between 108th and 112th streets, was in operation between 1920 and 1936 and featured some of the best competition and best drivers that racing provided during that era.
Racing in those days was pretty much done in open-wheel race cars with the driver sitting upright behind the engine of the bobtail racing machine — many crafted from mass-produced cars of the day. Some of the speed machines were home-made creations or highly stripped-down passenger cars.
The “Roaring 20s” at the one-mile Roby dirt oval would saw the likes of future Indianapolis 500 stars Wilbur Shaw, from Indianapolis, and Chicago’s Cliff Woodbury and Billy Arnold compete.
Shaw won three Indianapolis 500s — 1937, ’39 and ’40. Woodbury, the 1927 American Automobile Ass’n dirt-track champion, competed at Indianapolis four times with a third-place run in 1926 his best effort. Arnold, from the Hyde Park neighborhood of the “Windy City,” won the 500 in 1930.
Arnold was 24 years old when he drove the Harry Hartz-owned two-man car to victory in 1930. Leading all but two laps, Arnold and riding mechanic Spider Matlock raced to the checkered flag ahead of Shorty Cantlon and Louis Schneider, both veterans of the Roby speed battles.
Schneider won at Indianapolis in 1931.
Some of Arnold’s earliest racing experiences came at the half-mile dirt oval at the Lake County Fairgrounds. Arnold, along with Woodbury, Shaw and Schneider, all raced at Crown Point during the 1920s.
The 1930s saw more Indianapolis hopefuls compete at Roby with the likes of Chicago area drivers Jimmy Snyder, Emil Andres and Duke Nalon, along with Indianapolis resident “Wild Bill” Cummings and California’s Rex Mays, seeing action. A qualifying record setter in 1939, Snyder raced at Indy five times and finished second in 1939. Andres competed in the 500 on nine occasions, with a fourth-place finish in 1946.
A winner at Roby, Nalon, a former steel mill worker, drove in the Indianapolis event 10 times, posting a third-place finish in 1948. Cummings, winner of a 100-lap race at Roby in 1931, won the Indianapolis 500 in 1934.
Mays competed at the Brickyard 12 times and posted two second-place finishes — 1940 and ’41. Mays had the distinction of winning the last race held at Roby, a 50-lap headliner on Sept. 20, 1936.
Hammond Raceway, also known as the Hammond Speedway, was built in 1937 with the first race held in September. The five-eighths-mile dirt track was located in the vicinity of 129th Street and Calumet on acreage that became the Hammond 41 Outdoor Theatre.
Before his 1949 win at Indianapolis, East Coast racer Bill Holland was victorious at the Hammond oval in 1941.
Tony Bettenhausen, of Tinley Park, Ill., some 24 miles southwest of Chicago, was also a 1941 winner at Hammond before his Indy career started.
Bettenhausen drove in the 500 14 times, beginning in 1946, but never tasted victory. Bettenhausen, nicknamed the “Tinley Park Express,” lost his life in a crash during practice at Indianapolis in 1961.
Established after World War II, Illiana Motor Speedway was located on U.S. Highway 30, about two miles or so east of U.S. 41. The track was first a dirt oval but became a half-mile paved track prior to the 1962 season. Hammond resident and longtime Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealer, Harry Molenaar, owned and promoted the track.
Before their victories in the Indianapolis 500, A.J. Foyt, Jim Rathmann, Pat Flaherty, Bob Sweikert, Jimmy Bryan and Johnny Rutherford raced at Illiana in various types of race cars.
Foyt, the first four-time winner at Indianapolis, competed at Illiana in 1957, racing midgets. Rathmann, along with Flaherty and Sweikert and Bryan, also wanted a taste of Indianapolis.
Winning at Indy in 1960, Rathmann was a stock car winner at Illiana during the mid 1950s with Flaherty, winner at Indianapolis in 1956, Sweikert, Indy champion in 1955, and Bryan (1958) racing sprint cars at Illiana during the 1950s.
Rutherford, who won three Indianapolis 500s, was a sprint car winner at Illiana in May 1962, winning the first main event on the Illiana’s pavement.
With an Indianapolis 500 victory already added to their racing résumés, drivers such as Johnnie Parsons (1950 winner), Troy Ruttman (1952) and Rodger Ward (1959 and ’62) raced at Illiana after their victories at the famed Indianapolis oval.
Back in the day, Calumet Region speedways were “stepping-stones” to the Indianapolis 500.