CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Part of the Chicagoland stock car racing scene for some six decades, longtime area racing official Elmer Steinbeck passed away here May 18 at the age of 100.
As a youngster before World War II, Steinbeck went to the midget auto races at Chicago’s Riverview Speedway. Paying a nickel, he would ride a double-decker bus down Addison Ave. to the speedway, which was located next to the city’s famed Riverview amusement park.
After serving in the military, Steinbeck became involved in racing in the late 1940s when short track stock car racing began in the Chicago area. He helped leading driver Tom Cox for many years and was listed as the car owner of Cox’s Oldsmobile No. 11 at Raceway Park in 1951.
Steinbeck crewed for a number of local racers, including Cox, Bob Pronger and Harvey Sheeler, during the early days of American Automobile Association-sanctioned stock car racing. He would tell the story of him and Sheeler driving their banged up late model stock car on the highway from Springfield, Ill., back to Chicago one evening. With the windshield busted out, the pair would share the driving – one behind the wheel as the other stayed low under the dash to avoid the cold wind.
Steinbeck’s involvement in racing changed when he was asked to score the races at Chicago’s 87th Street Speedway in 1953 – never before performing the task. Before he knew it, he was working seven, and sometimes eight, times a week, handling the scoring and timing at tracks like 87th Street and Santa Fe Park Speedway as well as others throughout the Midwest. He worked with Chicago’s Harold Fosdick, who was an innovator/pioneer in electric timing for auto racing, and usually carried an extra timing clock or two in the trunk of his car.
He worked alongside Hall of Fame baseball announcer, Jack Brickhouse, at Santa Fe during TV telecasts there in 1954. Starting in 1957, he was the chief scorer at O’Hare Stadium and developed an electronic individual scoring system for the 33-car, O’Hare American 500. When O’Hare closed down after the 1968 season, Steinbeck began working for Hugh Deery at Rockford Speedway, scoring the track’s annual National Short Track Championships 200.
Steinbeck made a living at a number of different jobs from running a garage on Chicago’s northside, a pop delivery route man and an electrician. “I used to come home from the races sometimes, change clothes and go right to work,” remembered Steinbeck years later.
Steinbeck joined the staff at Indiana’s Illiana Motor Speedway in 1972 and retired from the chief scorer’s position after the 2007 season.
For many years, Steinbeck was involved in the annual Promoters Workshops in Daytona Beach, Fla., during Speed Weeks. He was inducted into the Illinois Stock Car Hall of Fame in 2014.
Living in Des Plaines, Ill., later in life, Steinbeck and his wife, Daniela, relocated to the Chattanooga area several years ago.
