Another item on my list of 30 Things to Do in Chicagoland is to see a race at the Rockford Speedway. We went tonight with friends. They bought our seats in advance, at the top of the grandstands near turn 1.
The Speedway has a quarter-mile track, much smaller than I’d anticipated. It had rained most of the afternoon and only quit around 6:30. The temperature was in the high 60’s, which made for perfect viewing weather. The races were delayed while cars zipped around to get warmed up and to dry the surface. Things finally got going around 7:30.
The meet opened with an invocation — not having been to a race before, this surprised me. The prayer went something like this:
Dear Heavenly Father:
Tonight we remember Joe Bixby [I can’t remember his actual name] who was responsible for us being here tonight. He developed an engine that enabled cars to go fast. A checkered flag will be carried in car number 02 so Joe can cross the finish line one more time.
We also remember my sister, whom we buried yesterday. Her twin sister will ride in the pace car.
Thank you for allowing us to enjoy auto racing.
Amen
Those aren’t the exact words, but that’s the gist of what he said.
Because of the rain delay, the program was shortened. We saw three or four short races with just a few cars, then went right to the feature events. There were three of these, one with compact cars (including several Pintos), one with late-model stock cars and one with road runners (whatever that means — they seemed to be older cars with a lot of dents). The yellow flag flew often, and laps aren’t counted under the yellow flag so the three races took a long time. There was a pile-up in the late-model race in turn one on the first lap that knocked the three top cars out of the race. The 20-lap road runner race started with 25 cars and ended with 13.
The final event was the World Famous Trailer Races. About 25 vehicles pulled onto the track, all pulling boats, camping trailers or some other thing. All were painted garishly and in bad shape. When lined up bumper to bumper, they covered the entire track. Then the race began. The winner would be the last driver to have an “intact” trailer. The word “intact” was defined loosely.
Did I mention that it was a figure-eight race? The smash-ups began immediately. Drivers were crashing right through the middle of trailers. Boats and trailer bits were everywhere — the middle of the field was a huge pile of debris that drivers had to go around or through. Some drivers got their vehicles stuck on other drivers’ trailers and were dragged around.
After perhaps 10 minutes of mayhem, the winner was declared. He had a boat trailer that was “intact” — missing its wheels and totally flattened.
It was about 9:45 when we left. I was pretty much deaf from the noise. I’m glad I went once, but I doubt I’ll be in a hurry to get back. The feature races were rather dull and the trailer race was just silly. Fun, but silly.