Chicago's Abandoned Racetrack Nobody Knows About - Inside Forgotten Meadowdale Raceway

at one time Chicago had its own road course and you've probably never heard of it but it still exists and we're going to show it to you today where on this map are we actually sitting right now dead center of the monzo the old monzo wall why is this a straightaway is this part here not part of the yeah well so they knocked the wall down after they had some pretty bad issues people went through the wall ended up on the track goes behind here too so they ended up going through the wallend landing on the racetrack down there they made like a a little turn then a short little shoot and then another they kind of made like a little Indianapolis flat oh okay so if we round this turn is that the main front stretch yes in the Book of Secrets is whoever oh hey so this was the main front stretch here so this is the beginning of the front straightway and they have Paddock and stuff was all over on this side Grand stands all on this side actually they had grand stand on both sides I think so which is this original racing surface over there yes all of this is um you know the pits was on this side and then Paddock so there's even at one time I think the pavement went back even a little farther than you can see that you know what that might have been yeah so it starts to gets a little bit wider through here you can see a little wall over here y we'll see a lot of that for sure I'd like to get out wherever they had the big Grand stands uh like the Press Box structure where was that at somewhere right here at the start Finish Line area um about where the cars parked down there is roughly start Finish Line okay when we get down there I want to get out and walk through the woods see if we can find some evidence of that building oh you can still kind of see it I see some Rubble back there what is that right behind that tree you can see where there's some kind of foot like a you know steel footing of the base of the wall see that pile of Steel back there what is yeah I want to get get in there and find a way to see that this is some type of scaffolding thing that's stacked together and there's a tree growing through it looks like it used to be gray so this was a start Finish Line right here somewhere in roughly in this area we're within we're within 20 ft and this is probably where the wall was yeah you can still see some of the wall for sure right here that might be what that was mhm so yeah we we thought it'd be a good idea bring a Fred Len replica car here um he he won the October race of 1958 uh arcer race um obviously not in this body style or this car but uh in 58 but we thought it' be pretty cool to bring that here just to you know have some fun park it here it looks good we usually bring it here for car shows um yearly they have car shows here now this place was abandoned for a long time before it turned into a park wasn't it yes how did that and then it was um it became a force Preserve in um was it 1998 Linda something like that there yeah and so that became a forest preserve like preserved area in 1998 so it can't be messed with and it's can't be can't be built on you know it'll it'll be here forever and it's a consistent walk path um I mean in the summertime every single spot of parking on this end over here is full and Ruby came in it's full it's it's it's pretty cool to see with their dogs and um you know their bicycles and stuff like that so it's become a pretty cool place when did the track close 1968 was the last major race it was the Trans Am race uh in July and then uh some of the clubs did something early in 69 but nothing uh of importance so this facility sat untouched unguarded from 69 is till 1998 yeah yeah and then from 98 to When did the ground breaking start for the walking paths and all that that was in uh 2009 oh they put in the bike path where's the best place to see um remnants of infrastructure buildings or you know stuff like that that's still left in the woods there's a building where the gas pumps were and the island thing is still there okay and um the building like collapsed I don't know what's there I haven't been back there for a couple years but um there's probably still stuff there if you want to go back there I'll oh yeah where that's at yeah let's do that one thing I haven't done at this place yet is go off the off the uh the main road there it's the first from me and I've lived here my whole life yeah I've walked almost every inch of it really yeah but not for a while so I guess now we're in the infield portion of the track I can't wait to get on some historical imagery and see what this was kill a little bit what is that oh here we go there is oh there's the gas building there's random pieces of it laying around out here somewh right there no kidding it fell down wow so this is the concrete pad where the building itself was where was the pump part at um is is that it right here yeah this is it the pump Island wow surrounded by pine trees if I can get a better look at it here none of these trees were here the last time I was here so it's like a you know like even the today's gas stations they still have the Curbing and it's raised up thing I actually have the front of one of the gas pumps also really yeah I'm going to have to some my guys in here to clear this [Music] out those are like two pumps and a sign that was bolted here with a pole on it or something you know I don't have any real clear pictures of it uh when it existed you know some stuff from a distance but the the two outlets kind of shows that it might have been a double yeah yeah it looks like it' be two pumps and maybe a sign that came out of here yeah electrical conduit probably right w I said Pure or something on huh yeah was there only one this is the only one I've come across only if we cut straight through there just wherever we get back to the track surface as here's some kind of hole right here it's a footer for a pole or fence or something so the difference in height of this is would would you think that would be like this would be track and then this would be a pit wall maybe at one time was here is that why it's down or did it just sink you think ah it just sunk yeah it looks a lot leveler over there so it might have just sunk yeah and pit out was I don't think pit out was all the way down here but could have been they probably did more sight work on the racing surface than the pit surface and that could be why it it sunk down a little bit did they ever repave the racing Surface after they took out the Monza wall well sure they would have had to put that down you know new pavement to flatten it interesting yeah and that was done in 66 or 67 it was done before the TRU was closed yeah they did they did a few events with it but it was flat there and that TransAm race it was flat the trans correct so this path here was the a whole Center sloth of this original pavement cut out for this to be put down correct and this grass so this pavement went all the way across oh so so this little grass area I never understood why they couldn't do it to one side or the other why they had to go right down the middle but why did it have to be done at all there's already a road here I know they said it for safety and I'm like we kind of fought it but we had to kind of fight fight it gently because we need their permission to be up here there was probably some areas of the track that actually needed it right yeah patched or whatever so we are proceeding is this down the front straightway way they' be racing yes okay yep had to do it that way made sense right there's a lot of elevation change in this RAC trck as much or more as Road America or Road Atlanta or any of them out there where are the cars in the woods we F window about that or those it sounds like they're easy to see from the main path especially with all the leaves gone so this is actually a really really good time to do this you can see way more so the main racing surface was really wide on the front stretch and then it would neck down in here cuz this kind of you see where it was graded up for that right they that must be original when they paved over what goes down there is that part of the track that was like a cut through we're going to go we're going to see that when we go around the other way too it was a they had a cut off for like um you know they did Seca stuff they wouldn't do the whole track they cut off certain areas shorter configuration yes exactly okay they had a couple different ways to get through there I guess so this was a bridge for the racing surface right yeah it was way cool it had a it was pretty wide and stuff this did not have a bridge when it was a racetrack it didn't this was paved and um it oh so it went down well it didn't go down this much no I thought it was like a kind of like a it was raised up a little bit not as high no it um it was pav supp to edit that out I was wrong yeah um and there was water that runs through here see it mhm Ian don't see too much now but anyway so it was starting to wash out and so they like kind of collapsed the ground here oh so the track followed the the it kept going down all the way down and then and then it HED back up wow I did not know that on track video number 11 behind so can you see up there where the the track surface stops and they graded this out to build that like how it's kind of got this little rise right here was that all I had that and when it uh somewhere along the way it kind of made a whoop you know and they wrote prey on it cuz the cars would get like air so it said prey on the track this a ravine made me think of that scene from uh what's that Hooper The Bert Reynolds movie where they launched the car over the canyon oh yeah you know what I'm talking about oh yeah I mean if this this is natural thing they had to grade some of it to get a road across here but still that's a freaking big undulation you got to be flying coming down that hill and then use some of this to slow you down to take that turn and then gain more speed coming down it yeah oh that that looks like a lot of fun that terrifying yeah two schools of thought was definitely ahead of its time I believe I think a lot of people would agree with that they were going to have like a restaurant and Clubhouse thing they were going to have a swimming pool wow you know so you'd be a member kind of like Auto ohow exactly but more but more even yeah really wow which was way ahead of it time the tables that was you know worked out so what led to the demise of the track Why didn't it succeed some people have told me that if the first race hadn't been so well publicized it might have still lasted because they had publicized the act out of it and estimates ranged from 100 to 150,000 people showed up unfortunately there was no grass they ran out of um bathrooms and food and drinks and it was very very dusty the cars would go by and you couldn't even see them because the dust clouds were so bad so all those people left with a really bad impression of the track um so that was one thing the only fatality here happened in practice of that very first race mil region of the Seca wanted some changes some safety changes and the track was unwilling to make them so they used Road America more than here uh so it's just kind of a you know a bunch of things Al together good example of you can only bring a product at the market for the first time one time right exactly yeah before the internet how would people know oh well it's different here now they just knew that it was bad and their dentists told them they went there and it was bad and just and of course the traffic was lined up you know forever to get in here and such where was the the one fatality on the track it was in D's Corner um which is that way we haven't been there yet have we okay no you you would think it would have happened on the Monza wall but from what I've heard it never it never did happen there they had like few cars go through the wall from what I've heard ended up on the other side on the other side of the racetrack but's corner is kind of a um a hair pin and that it and you'll see when we go by there like the two lanes are like this you know so you can see the cars coming both ways and then the dones corner there was like a little Mound there and like a concession in the middle but you kind of would swoop out come around and then swoop back in and go so it was it was a little tricky but they come down through they're flat out I think there was something still there that left there wasn't maybe a bridge but something didn't let it go down as much as it it is interesting but I mean you're taking that front St wide open you probably down through there wide open they're still I mean they're probably shutting down somewhere in this area cuz they're like freaking I mean they're they're probably going 160 mph back then even the stock car some of the sports cars I heard were doing like 180 or something like that before they shut down this uh little Monza from what I've heard back in the day drivers this is like this is the area where you really need to suck it up like it's a butt pucker deal cuz you're like a I mean you're probably still going pretty good they're probably they've been shutting you know they' probably been shutting down on the brakes this whole time we've been talking and still wo down and thrown into a bank you know downhill Corner probably carry a good bit of speed through because it is bank but you can't see yeah so you're just there's a big balls corner here so that wall looks like the concrete wasn't the wall they had a guard rail over that so if you would hit the guard rail and then kind of Squish into the wall which might help slow you down a little bit Yeah I think all of the the guard rails were when I heard they were stolen over the over the years and like like Linda was saying for 40 years this place was a Dumping Ground people came back here um I'm guilty of that I came back here in 1996 with my Firebird I got about maybe a few minutes into a lap I was like I I'm scar I just I don't know I got nervous like I'm going to get busted and I just bought the car like I didn't even have tags on it yet temporary tag like that's the last thing I need to do is get busted on a old racetrack did you get down to this part of it yeah I Came In by The Silo entrance and started heading that direction a little bit and then got scared and turned around I I for I think I heard sirens or something like that oh my God out here so let me just I'll rerecord the intro here we're here with AJ Hendrickson who is half a lat veteran of this racetrack 30 years ago 30 years after it closed he saw half the racetrack well not quite a little bit a few minutes I'm not sure and I wasn't going really fast either I was just and it was like stupid late at night I'm thinking it was like 2:00 or 3 in the morning so this looks like it was pretty wide those trees must have started growing shortly after it closed cuz they're big but the guard rail is another few feet Beyond The Big Trees right yeah absolutely whenever we do these kinds of things I just wonder if there are places that I've spent a lot of time at in my lifetime that will one day look like this when I'm older and I'll be sad about it yeah I've actually gone through that already in my life I'm not that old one of the coolest RAC tracks I've ever B in my entire life little a go-kart track banked like 30° fifth Mile and uh it's it closed down surely after to we race there in ' 04 and it looks worse than this it's just a it's a mess let's check out The Silo here yeah in the summer time like this parking lot slam I mean be sometimes there'll be cars parked in the neighborhood across the street wow 3.27 miles yep 3.27 so we are here yep we came in about right here which was before the video started and we were parked out here that's where we saw the scaffolding the gas thing is in here somewhere before it gets narrower maybe the gas thing was at the uh somewhere in that area yeah the pits and stuff so right in this area yeah yeah yeah so that straightaway shows it it's completely straight but the cart walking path we on is curved so that was bone straight there I I don't some of the pictures I've I've seen there there's there's a little bit of curve there and and some of the maps are a little just a little bit different like some of it will show a little bit of windy through that area where the the bridge is about how many years ago you figured did they did they uh redo this but about 10 10 years ago uh 2008 was the Save The Silo thing um so they they wanted to tear it down and some of them got together and painted it and you know kept it your dad's on this donor's list on the back yeah I think so yeah he's he's right there there you go yep very very cool Arie Junior so are you Arnie the third yes oh wow yeah those are pretty cool pictures there yeah I remember seeing it like that for many many years driving by wow very cool I did that so The Silo was part of a farm that was on this land before the racetrack happened right interesting I was like looking at the back and I'm like your dad is on here cool I I mean I knew it was there I honestly I forgot I haven't been out here in a while like I actually haven't went around this part of the track since well probably since I drove back here in '96 with my bird so this is the direction I I went I went in that Silo entrance and just came up here and went a half mile or so and got scared and laugh was the surface on this grade or was a little bit lower actually right here it was all busted up Asphalt it was like just main basically like compact together gravel you know like stuff like just gravel and that with a little bit of asphalt busted apart in it and stuff there we go so his face are Mak it look at up back and forth while I'm steering yeah so we were on the back side of monzo wall right there really yep where are we now like right here did we go through the lens hair pin I don't think so I think we're I think we're about to be in the lens hair pin that's possible cuz the The Silo was down there where it says underpass I think oh yeah okay Greg's cork screw or something that's a cool little spot right there that look pretty nice shape too was it is it's kind of weird is that nicer than what you drove on down there when you drove on it yeah yeah cuz the uphill stuff's tore up just from I mean I'm sure even during when they raced on it it was pretty hard on it going uphill oh there's more concrete retaining wall right there so yes you are correct on that we were yeah they were that was the front straightway and the lens hair pin we're doing that now we're in the lens hair pin right now now was the owner uh Leonard um bessenger you see some of the original asphalt under the grass there there's more yeah that's a lot more beat up looking yeah so it was like that what you just saw there most of the track was like that is really not that bad no you know yeah when the forest preserve took it over they they did they did their best on making the path a path again like a lot of it was grown in you there was like literally trees and stuff growing in the middle of the road you know just brush and just stuff that was just taking over the pavement so they came in through you know they did a pretty good job clearing it out this is about to where I got and I turned back I like okay I I'm going to get in trouble I think I heard sirens or something I'm out of here I'm sure it wasn't the only one there probably some people that went around the whole racetrack the whole Road surface right there exactly so most of the track like all through here was just like that some kind of oh there's a couple guardrail poles in there that they put foam over in case somebody crashed their bike and hit them there's more guard rail over there so there was a little bit of runoff cuz the track service you can see ended over here somewhere and…