Pete Jenin – Owner and Promoter of Raceway Park

By Stan Kalwasinski

He was a small man in stature, but you knew Pete Jenin was the boss.  Jenin headed up the auto racing activities at Chicagoland’s Raceway Park from 1947 until the track closed after the 2000 racing season.  With a partner or two or three along the way, Jenin guided the track to prominence during his years of holding the reins and the speedway was definitely “Pete’s track.”

Over the years, Jenin did what he thought was best for his operation.  Competition from other area speedways, drivers’ strikes, criticisms from various sources, etc. were the sort of things that Jenin addressed over the years.  One time, Jenin was ready to drive his asphalt roller over a pack of late model cars that drivers had parked on the main straightaway during a drivers/management disagreement at the raceway. 

“He was a stubborn son of gun, but a lot of people had a lot of respect for him because of that,” said four-time track champion Pat Echlin in an interview once.  “He taught a lot of us to stick to your guns.”

Jenin was born in Blue Island, Ill., on July 18, 1917 and by the age of 15 was working at the local oil refinery in Blue Island, his hometown.  Years later, Jenin would reminisce about riding his bicycle passed the construction site that would eventually become Raceway Park at the southeast corner of Vermont Street and Ashland Avenue.  The track’s acreage actually sat inside the boundaries of the Village of Calumet Park, but for years the track was referred to as being located at 130^th Street and Ashland Avenue in Blue Island on U.S. Highway 54.

Jenin’s older brother, Nick, was involved in racing many years prior to the Jenin name being associated with Raceway Park as a driver in open-wheel competition.  A nasty wreck at Crown Point, Ind., ended Nick Jenin’s racing career.  Pete Jenin became a race fan around 1939 and owned and drove a midget or two at Raceway Park before World War II shut down all auto racing in the United States.

Nick Jenin spent most of the war years involved in business in Florida.  The Jenin Brothers got together though in late 1946 to purchase Raceway Park, which had been sitting idle since July of 1942.  The track was pretty much run down and in a condemned state.  Doing some fix up/clean up work, with Pete handling most of the chores, the Jenin Brothers promoted their first event at Raceway Park – a midget racing program on June 4, 1947 with Paul Russo winning the 25-lap main event.  Weekly midget racing was the drawing card back then with the likes of track champion Tony Bettenhausen, Johnny Roberts, Mike O’Halloran, Danny Kladis and Don Brennan being some of the top runners during the 22-event/1947 campaign.

The facility went through a total makeover.  New concrete grandstands for 10,000, paved pits and the reshaping of the dirt track were some of the major improvements with Pete, although still working at the oil refinery, again doing most of the “bull work” with a crane, cement mixer and concrete block machine becoming his best friends!

Midget racing was still the draw as the 1948 season began with 60 events presented by the end of the year, including two for a new fad – short track stock car racing.  Stock car racing had been held previously throughout the country, but mostly on larger tracks, half-mile or larger.  This new thrilling sport featured cars battling on small quarter and fifth-mile ovals with crashes and flips entertaining the fans.  Midget racer Danny Kladis won a 300-lap stock car battle at Raceway on Sunday afternoon October 31 with Bill Van Allen winning a 100-lap race the following Sunday.

Stock car racing at Raceway Park was up and running, but the midgets were still the “top billing” when things got underway in 1949, but slowly the stockers replaced the midgets for the weekly competition with weekly midget racing held for the last time in 1953.

 80 race programs were presented by the Jenin Brothers in 1951 with the track acquiring the title – “The World’s Busiest Track.”  Maintenance issues to the dirt/clay/brick dust surface (a Raceway Park patent) forced the Jenins to pave their track in 1953 after a few early-season races on the dirt had been held.  Raceway Park was said to be originally built for dog racing and in 1953 several non-betting, exhibition Greyhound dog races were held, but government officials would hear nothing of having real pari-mutuel betting held at the speedway. 

The “World Famous Motordrome” was averaging about 60 race meets a year, keeping the Jenin Brothers busy.  It was “There’s no parading here (at Raceway Park).  It’s real racing.” and Pete Jenin even had banner-carrying airplane fly over Soldier Field during several racing events there to inform those fans of this.  With Pete not being offered his shares, Nick Jenin sold his interest in the speedway before the 1953 season and Pete had a new partner, Jimmy Derrico and his associates, who Pete would finally buy out by 1970.

The track flourished in the 1950s and 60s with the stock cars running sometimes four-nights-a week at the short quarter-mile paved oval.  Large crowds were on hand, watching the likes of 11-time stock car champion Bud Koehler, Bob Pronger and Bill Van Allen and others become racing legends.  Holiday races, the track’s annual 300 Lap Classic and Fourth of July fireworks shows were dates not to miss.

The 1970s saw Jenin in full control of his track.  In 1980, Jenin turned the track over to Calumet Raceway Associates as the group obtained a lease with an option to buy.  Things didn’t work out and Jenin was back in control in 1982.  Jenin, with the support of his wife, Blanche, carried on ruling the speedway.  Blanche Jenin passed away in 1986.

As the years came and went, the thrill of Raceway Park seemed to dim.  Late Model car counts began to dwindle and the fans found other tracks to attend or simply became non-race fans as their neighborhood track didn’t seem to have the zip it once had.

Pete Jenin was still the boss though and tried a number of things to keep the raceway running.  Property taxes and property values seemed to put the final nail in the coffin.  Jenin sold Raceway Park after the 2000 racing season with the property becoming a large commercial development, including the building of an Ultra Foods store on the site.

Just under 3,000 racing events were held at Pete’s track before the gates were closed for the final time on September 30, 2000.  Pete Jenin passed away on August 25, 2006 at the age of 89.  He was inducted into the Illinois Stock Car Hall of Fame in 2015.

END

Thanks to Wayne Adams and Tony Baranek for their contributions to this story.