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5/7/25, 3:41 PM   #13
Re: Illinois speedweek
ISF
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Join Date: Apr 2010
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There actually was a racetrack on the exact plot of land that contains the present day track. That track began operations in 1948 as Tri-County Speedway and was host to mainly midget racing prior to closing sometime in the mid 1950's. After the original racetrack was done away with a drive-in theater was built on the property in the 1950's and closed sometime in the 1970's and the property laid basically dormant until Tommy Glynn built the present day track that opened in 1986.

The aforementioned late season sprint car event was/is the Bill Waite Jr. Memorial that included the IRA winged sprint cars and the Badger Midgets. At that time the midgets generally put on a great show but later years the Badger guys weren't included and the dirt late models and modified's took their place.

The Bill Waite Jr. Memorial is again on the La Salle Speedway schedule featuring the MOWA and IRA winged sprint cars as well as the Wisconsin wingLESS Sprint Cars which are a crate engine sprint division.

IIRC Sammy Swindell got dinged pretty bad during one of the WoO's Sprint Car events back in the day at La Salle. The track exit opening in the retaining wall was located in turn #3 and Sammy hit it a ton during qualifications, I believe. A couple of dirt late models had some nasty dust-ups in the same area. That's exit opening was closed off quite a while back.
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Silver Crown Championship Dirt Cars properly driven on a one mile dirt track are classic poetry in motion. Using that analogy, Jack Hewitt is one of the greatest poets of all time.
 
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