Back in 1960 after I’d graduated from junior high here in Oswego and was looking forward to my first year of high school, my parents took me on an epic road trip west to Colorado.
My mother did the driving since my dad was afflicted with spinal arthritis. We worked our way across the country, stopping at every historical site we saw and often visiting relatives to stay for a day or two before hitting the road again. But just as often, we stayed the night in a motel. When we registered they always looked at our address and wondered where Oswego, Illinois was. About six miles south of Aurora, my mother always replied to which they always perked up and commented, “Oh, where that crazy mayor is!”
Aurora Mayor Paul Egan had become a national character thanks to his unconventional antics, the accounts of which, while entertaining, overshadowed his real accomplishments. It was his idea, for instance, to build a bypass to route heavy truck traffic traveling east and west on then-busy U.S. Route 30—the Lincoln Highway—around downtown Aurora. Bypass Route 30 was a huge success, as was his advocacy for city swimming pools and mosquito spraying.
But then in the fall of 1964 when I headed off to Northern Illinois University and told the Chicago guys on my floor in Douglas Hall that I was from Oswego, they all knew exactly where that was. “SUNDAY!” they’d invariably yell, repeating voice actor Jan Gabriel’s “SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! At the Oswego Drag Raceway!” ads broadcast on 50,000 watt rock ‘n roll powerhouse radio station WLS-AM.
All of them had not only heard the commercials, but many had even driven out to attend one of the Sunday drag races at what us locals called “the strip.”
The mid-1960s were arguably the golden years at the Oswego Drag Raceway when locals (as opposed to corporate-sponsored racing teams) still dominated each week’s racing bill and young men and women brought their Pontiac GTOs, Oldsmobile 442s, Chevy Malibu Super Sports, Dodge Challengers, home built hotrods, and custom dragsters sponsored by local gas stations and auto dealers to the strip to try their luck against others.
Run what you brung was the order of the day for so many while others—Bob Mead from here in Oswego, Don Hausler and crew from Plano, and Al Thompson’s team from Aurora’s Al’s Speed Shop come immediately to mind—built and raced their own dedicated dragsters.
Hotrodders began street racing in California in the 1930s, and that graduated to short races on California’s dry lake beds. But then World War II broke out, putting a temporary stop to the motorized fun. Not until the late 1940s when millions of youngsters were released from military service did drag racing pick up again.
As it turned out, one thing there were plenty of in California in the late 1940s and early 1950s were training air strips left over from the war, and hotrodders quickly adopted them for racing, often being chased away by military guards still protecting them. But in 1950, racing enthusiasts persuaded city officials at Santa Anna, California to use a quarter-mile asphalt former airstrip that had been used to train U.S. Navy carrier pilots. The first official race there was held July 2, 1950, establishing forever after the quarter mile drag strip length.
America had been car-crazy for decades and racing homebuilt hotrods was becoming more and more popular all over the country. Street racing was a popular, if illegal and sometimes dangerous, pastime for young motorheads.
Here in the Fox Valley, Wally and Bob Smith, sons of farmer William Smith, had an idea. Hearing about the growing popularity of sanctioned drag racing as opposed to dangerous street racing, and knowing they had a strip of farmland along the north side of U.S. Route 34 a couple miles west of the Oswego bridge that was not as productive as they’d like, they thought maybe it would work as a local drag strip.
As near as I can figure from the admittedly confusing chronology gleaned from local newspapers and other sources, the Smiths graded a quarter mile dirt drag strip oriented north and south in 1954—that orientation was important since it would keep both the rising and setting sun out of racers’ eyes. Word got around quickly that there was a non-street dragway near Oswego and crowds showed up. That didn’t bother the Smiths—they were at least somewhat used to crowds. In October 1949, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru drew a huge crowd when he made the Smith farm one of his stops on an agricultural visit to the United States.
But Wally and Bob quickly realized they didn’t have the expertise or personnel to run what appeared was going to be a popular raceway, so they contacted the Aurora Autocrats Car Club, which agreed to be the initial dragway operators. The first improvement was to lay down a tar and chip surface for their 1955 inaugural season. As the Beacon-News reported in 1956: “Last year the Aurora Autocrats sponsored racing for five weeks on a ‘crude’ oil strip at the same location. In the abbreviated racing season in 1955, the Oswego Drag Strip attracted up to 122 entries in one day.”
According to the April 1, 1956, Beacon: “Last year the club started the Oswego Drag Strip on Route 34 about a mile and a half west of Oswego and plans to blacktop the runway this year and further improve the layout to attract drivers from all over Illinois. The project when realized this summer will represent an investment of approximately $40,000.” That $40,000 doesn’t seem like a whole lot today, but in current dollars it amounted to very close to a half-million bucks.
The Oswego Drag Raceway was planned by the Autocrats to be a quality facility where safety would be a major consideration. Racing rules established by the National Hot Rod Association would be scrupulously followed at the dragway, with the extensive facilities described as: “Three acres of pit area for the racers and each driver will have his own stall. Bleachers for 1,000 fans will be constructed, but the 10-acre parking lot will enable the bulk of the fans to watch the races from their cars. The parking lot will hold 5,000 cars. The quarter mile drag strip will also boast modern rest rooms and concession stands. Official National Hot Rod Association safety rules will be in effect and all cars will be weighed, checked, and approved by national officials before being allowed on the racing track.”
And with that, the dragway became the hottest draw in Kendall County, pulling in thousands of spectators and participants each Sunday—not to mention a few experiments with night racing as well. Also please recall that at this time Oswego was a rural village with a total population of 1,220, a police force of one person (assisted by a night watchman), no traffic signals at all, and only a couple stop signs. Thousands of vehicles suddenly roaring through town on U.S. Route 34 every Sunday during the racing season completely overwhelmed the community.
On April 18, 1957, the Oswego Ledger reported: “The Oswego Dragway was scene of a record-breaking crowd last Sunday as 4,352 persons packed every available space of the grounds. A field of 364 cars competed on the twin acceleration strips with a total of 1,276 runs being made during the day’s competition.,,Wally and Bob Smith, owners of the drag strip, located on Route 34 about a mile south of Oswego, are busily preparing for another large turnout next Sunday.”
Wally and Bob weren’t the only ones looking forward to “another large turnout,” either. Oswego residents used to sleepy, quiet Sundays from May to October were getting rude awakenings. Time trials started at the dragway at 8 a.m. and the noise from un-mufflered dragsters followed right up the Fox River’s valley, especially with the area’s frequent summer winds blowing out of the southwest.
On May 9, 1957, the Ledger noted: “In answer to many complaints filed at the county courthouse and at Springfield, state police moved into Oswego last Sunday in an effort to curb traffic violations caused by the heavy traffic bound for the drag strip west of town. Over 100 arrest tickets were handed out by the officers, with the majority of the violations being noisy and improper mufflers.”
It was nice to have the state troopers in town to try to settle things down, but the village fathers noticed that all that fine money was not going into Oswego’s coffers, but rather was being funneled down to Springfield.
By the next week, things had been worked out with the troopers, who made sure Oswego Police Officer Paul Dwyre was on hand to assist in the arrests—and so Oswego could collect that ticket revenue. And to make it even more streamlined, a justice of the peace court was set up at the Oswego Village Hall in downtown Oswego to process the traffic tickets. As the Ledger reported: “State police officers were again on duty Sunday, May 12, to assist local law enforcement authorities and a total of 30 arrests were made. Thirteen arrests for speeding charges, 13 on noisy muffler charges, four for operating improperly license vehicles. Justice of the Peace Art Tramblie said that he was impressed by the fact that the great majority of those brought into court were honorable, respectable young citizens who merely needed a small fine as a reminder that they must operate the automobiles in compliance with the law at all times.”
The races drew the area’s young men like flies to honey. Both individuals and groups began racing their cars, both the ones they usually drove, and ones they built purposely to race at “the strip.” Al’s Speed Shop up on the north side of Aurora off North Lake Street did a land office business selling all the specialized equipment required to create the race cars so many craved.
While “the strip” charged admission, we found if we walked from one of our friends’ houses along Route 34 we could usually avoid the ticket price to watch whatever hot cars were running that Sunday. And for those of us in Boy Scouts in the late ‘50s, “the strip” was a bit of a money-maker. Our Oswego troop volunteered to clean up trash on Mondays after Sunday races. Getting assigned to pick up trash under the bleachers was the plum assignment since customers tended to drop money and our policy was strictly finders, keepers.
We weren’t the only ones who figure out drag racing could earn some money, either. And starting in the late 1960s, corporate sponsorships began to move into drag racing. Where previously, young dragsters financed their own race machines or got a local business to help out with some of the costs, big money began flowing into the sport.
As former drag racer Donny Carlton recalled, things began changing in the 1967 and 1968 racing seasons. “Before that time, a guy working out of his own basement or garage could show up and be competitive. By 1970, it was very difficult for the weekend guys to compete with the full-time teams.”
While the mix of participants at the Oswego Drag Raceway changed, as did the companies who managed the track, its popularity did not. All through the 1970s, the track weekly drew thousands of racers and spectators to “the strip.” Changes in technology weren’t confined to the dragsters, either. Nearly from the start of racing at Oswego, the starter had been Boulder Hill resident Jim “Woody” Woodrow, whose leap with two starting flags had become an Oswego Drag Raceway signature. But with more and more technology being introduced and big sponsorship money riding on winning drag races, electronic starting devices were introduced, including at Oswego eliminating some of the personal showmanship that had enlivened early drag racing.
From the 1950s and on into the 1970s, some of the most famous names in drag racing appeared at Oswego, including “Big Daddy” Don Garlits; Shirley Muldowney; Don Prudhomme; Stone, Woods and Cook; Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick; Walt Arfons and his Green Monster jet dragster; “TV” Tommy Ivo; Conrad “Connie” Kalitta; and Chris “The Greek” Karamesines and Don Maynard and their Chizzler slingshot dragsters.
It was easy to tell by the deep, window-rattling roar when either Arfons’s Green Monster or The Avenger jet dragsters were running that week, not that the average rail or other hotrod didn’t make enough noise, of course.
One of those who was not amused by the constant weekend traffic snarls and the dragway’s noise was local veterinarian Dr. Howard Koch. “Doc” Koch’s farm was located on Route 34 about a half mile east of the strip, which meant all the traffic headed there went right past his driveway, making it difficult, if not sometimes impossible, to get in and out of his own farm.
Unlike the rest of the Oswego area residents directly affected by the raceway’s traffic, Koch had the means to do something about it and in 1979 he did something—he bought the land on which the strip was located. The strip’s operators announced there would be no 1980 racing season at the Oswego Drag Raceway. Instead of lines of racing enthusiasts, henceforth traffic in and out of the venerable drag raceway would be trucks hauling trees and shrubs grown by the Hinsdale Nursery, which leased the land.
After that, the old asphalt strip was allowed to deteriorate, used only for tree nursery personnel to drive on. But in the 1990s, the dragway got a little more attention, this time from the U.S. Geological Survey. It was time for USGS to update the Yorkville Quadrangle map and one of their cartographers stopped by the office of the Ledger-Sentinel, Oswego’s weekly newspaper where I was the editor. He was wondering whether any topographical errors needed to be corrected, and I told him that, yes, there was one. Maps, for years, had identified a “landing strip” off U.S. Route 34 west of Oswego. I told him it was not a landing strip but was the old Oswego Drag Raceway and that they might want to—finally—correct their maps. I’ve always thought it ironic that so many old World War II vintage landing strips got used as drag strips while our own drag strip got mistaken for one of those old landing strips.
*Hat tip to my old buddy, Paul Baumann for suggesting I do a post on the old drag strip…
historyonthefox 