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Chicagoland Speedway
The Historic Route 66 has always held a close place in the hearts of many a motorist and history buff. A true symbol of an era of nostalgia, Historic Route 66 soon entered into another phase of history in 1997 when nine Joliet area entrepreneurs had the visionary leadership to create Route 66 Raceway, a state-of-the-art ¼-mile Drag Strip and ½-mile Dirt Oval Track facility, along the historic road. Several years later, the growing popularity of auto racing and the demand from loyal fans would bring to the site of Route 66 Raceway, the 1.5-mile tri-oval Chicagoland Speedway. With the addition of the 75,000-seat, $130 million Speedway, Joliet's world-class motorsports complex would form what is now Illinois' largest sporting facility, occupying over 1,300-acres. Dating back to 1895, when the first ever gasoline-powered race was held up-and-down the Chicago lakefront, Illinois has played a significant role in establishing motorsports as one of the most exciting and popular spectator sports in the world. Now, Joliet's Chicagoland Speedway/Route 66 Raceway has written a new chapter in Illinois' long and prestigious racing history.
This magnificent speedway is the result of over five years of painstaking effort by Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Tony George, International Speedway Corporation Chief Executive Officer Bill France and nine local Joliet entrepreneurs: George Barr, Jim Bingham, Dale Coyne, Jerry Papesh, Ed Rensi, Steve Spiess, Dale Steffes, Jack Steffes and Rex Steffes.
The plan to build a superspeedway in the third-largest market in the nation had been rumored for years. Auto-racing executives and major-league sanctioning bodies had long maintained that the untapped market of Chicago was perhaps the most lucrative in the country.
The race to build a major speedway in the Windy City took its first step towards becoming a reality during an informal meeting between George and France in late 1995. George had recently created the Indy Racing League, and France was on the verge of taking NASCAR further into the mainstream than anyone could have imagined.
With new tracks already being built in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Texas, as well as the growing popularity of auto racing exploding in the United States, the time had come for Chicago to stand up and be noticed.
The Motorsports Alliance, consisting of George, France, and home-remodeling magnate John Menard, was formed in the spring of 1996 and immediately began considering sites that summer.
The quest for the site of Chicagoland Speedway was a long road. The group looked at several locations, including property near downtown Chicago, as well as in all neighboring counties. The first effort to begin the project was to focus on a 500-acre plot of land less than 30 miles from downtown Chicago, near the Dupage County Airport. Faced with constructing a facility that would be able to host NASCAR and the Indy Racing League on a small parcel of land, the trio decided that the extremely high price of real estate would not fit properly into the budget.
The Alliance was contacted by several communities that were interested in building the facility and even looked at sites as far west as Rochelle, before turning their attention to the small farm community of Plano, about 70 miles west of Chicago, in the fall of 1997.
The proposed track drew strong support from the mayor and City
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