SOLDIER FIELD - CHICAGO IL
Construction of Soldier Field, located at 14th Street and Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, began in 1922 and was completed in 1926 at a cost of $10 million. Blueprints called for a u-shaped plan in classic Greek style with monumental porticos on the east and west sides. It was first called Municipal Grant Park Stadium, but it was changed to Soldier Field in honor of Chicago area war veterans who died in World War I. Soldier Field, located hard on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, only blocks from the iconic skyscrapers of Chicago, will forever be known primarily as the home of the Chicago Bears and one of the National Football League’s landmark stadiums. Soldier Field once hosted a regular schedule of auto racing events, and for a time, was a hotbed of stock car and midget racing. A cinder track was built inside the stadium in the 1930s. The first midget race held at Soldier Field was on May 19, 1935 with Marshall Lewis taking the main event.
The second time Soldier Field played host to midget racing was June 1939, when the American Automobile Association’s World's Championship Midget Automobile Races took place on a wooden track erected in Soldier Field. The old cinder track was replaced by a new clay oval in 1941, but World War II erupted and racing came to a halt in the summer of 1942. Auto racing took a hiatus during the years of World War II, with fuel restrictions and an auto industry more focused on building Sherman tanks and trucks to defeat the Axis instead of cars for the public. But after the war racing returned with a fury with stock cars – what today
would be the cars of NASCAR – joining the midget racers providing a solid diet of weekly entertainment during the summer months. The Chicago Auto Racing Association, headed by ex-Chicago Cardinals football player, Art Folz, paved the quarter mile track in 1946 and weekly midget racing was presented for a number of years. It was during these years that Jim Rathmann, who went on to win the 1960 Indianapolis 500, started his racing career at Soldier Field. An active promoter in the Chicago area, Granatelli scheduled weekly and sometimes twice-weekly stock-car racing programs at the stadium in the 1950s, in the process attracting tens of thousands of fans with rock ’em, sock ’em shows that typically featured
numerous crashes and wild action. Granatelli is more widely known for hooking up Richard Petty with the STP sponsorship deal, and was a central figure at the Indianapolis 500 teaming with driver Mario Andretti. On good nights, the crowd surpassed 30,000; and probably 70,000 to 80,000 for special races. Advertisements for the races guaranteed “DANGER! THRILLS CHILLS SPILLS.” And the price was right: usually one or two bucks per person. Fans poured into the stadium on subway trains and buses. The fastest cars started in the
ARCA Series
Tom Pistone leads Fred Lorensen
rear and started them three-abreast. They had to come from the rear. It was a wild race. Hot rod racing was introduced to Soldier Field fans in 1947 when Andy Granatelli convinced promoter Folz to stage a hot rod event in July of that year. When stock cars replaced the “short-lived” hot rods at Soldier Field in 1950, Dick Rathmann grabbed track championship honors for the Wednesday night action. Rathmann repeated the trick the following season with Michaels capturing a Soldier Field stock car title in 1952. The NASCAR Cup series invaded Soldier Field in 1956. The race was in July and was 200 laps around the 1/2 mile paved oval. Fireball Roberts would win
this race by a slim one car length in front of a crowd of 14,000. Ralph Moody, Speedy Thompson and Frank Mundy were close behind. The Convertible Series ran three races at the track. It was in June of 1956. It was another close race as Tom Pistone beat out Curtis Turner by three cars lengths. The Convertibles were back in September of that same year. It was a grueling 500 lap race, and Curtis Turner would beat Joe Weatherly by a lap with Bob Welborn third. The final race was here in June 1957. Glen Wood would wheel his ragtop to a slim win over Possum Jones, with Larry Frank coming in third. Auto racing at Soldier Field was suspended for 1959, as the facility hosted
1956 - Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly front row
track and field events of the 1959 Pan-American Games, and continued through the 1960s but did not have the same following as it did during the heady days of the go-go 1950s. The final stock car race in Soldier Field took place on June 7th, 1968 with Sal Tovella, a stalwart of the Chicago auto racing scene, taking the checked flag for the final time. The racing surface was torn out in 1970, in preparation for the Chicago Bears move from Wrigley Field, and an era of auto racing in the confines of Solider Field closed forever.
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