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Roby Speedway Presentation – January 24th

Race cars roar down the main straightaway at Hammond’s Roby Speedway in 1923.

 

Hammond, Ind.—Auto racing historian Jerry Murawski, assisted by Chicago area racing history buff Stan Kalwasinski, will give a historical presentation regarding Hammond’s Roby Speedway on Saturday, January 24, at the Hammond Library at 10:00 a.m.

A packed house is on hand for an afternoon of racing at Hammond's Roby Speedway in 1935.

A packed house is on hand for an afternoon of racing at Hammond’s Roby Speedway in 1935.

Murawski, a Chicago Heights, Ill. resident, has spent years researching and documenting the one-mile dirt speedway, which operated between 1920 and 1936.  The track was located west of Indianapolis Boulevard, bordered by 108th Street on the north, 112th Street on the south and Avenue A to the west, just east of the Hammond/Chicago border.

Kalwasinski, who lives in Munster, has made of a hobby of collecting historical information regarding various speedways in the Chicago and northwest Indiana areas.  Kalwasinski maintains a website – ChicagolandAutoRacing.com, which provides a great deal of information about local automobile racing.

Part of a threesome of horse racing tracks built in the late 1800s in the Hammond/Whiting area, the Roby track became a popular Midwestern auto racing facility in the 1920s and 30s with numerous drivers testing their skills on the mile raceway with many of them eventually competing in the Indianapolis 500.

The library is located at 564 State St in Hammond.  Admission is free.  For more information, call (219) 923-1475 or (708) 754-2553.

 

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