Second-generation drivers play a big role in the local racing scene.
This season we’ve got one who has designs on a track title at Illiana Speedway.
Matt O’Leary is pacing the pack in the Legends Division with two heat wins and two feature victories. The 24-year-old Dyer, Ind., native has 857 points while Jacob Melvin (830) and Stan Zolodz IV (828) are a close second and third.
“Yeah, so far so good,” O’Leary said. “We’ve been kind of going back to the basics, keeping everything simple, just coming to the track to have fun. So far it’s panned out for us.”
Matt O’Leary is the son of former Raceway Park standout Tom O’Leary, who during his career in the 1980s and ’90s won 22 feature races. O’Leary was one of the drivers who responded when track owner Pete Jenin switched to economy late-models, and helped the track’s newly shaped top division gain a bit of a resurgence.
After winning 13 late-model features over the course of a handful of seasons, Tom O’Leary retired from racing shortly after Matt was born.
“My dad is the sole reason that I got into racing. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” Matt O’Leary said. “He was absolutely the biggest influence in my racing career, traveling the country week in and week out (with me) to race go-karts nationally.
“He didn’t only teach me about racing things like setups, driving styles, things like that, he also taught me about hard work, perseverance and sportsmanship.”
Tom’s son is proving to be a chip off the old block.
“I’m very proud of him, on and off the track,” Tom O’Leary said. “He races because he likes to, that’s the best part about it.”
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Matt O’Leary has been competing in the Legends Division at Illiana since 2008. He was second to champion Alex Arelano in 2012, taking the battle to the final night before Arelano prevailed by a scant 14 points.
Although O’Leary has regularly been a top competitor, he hasn’t been a regular attendance-wise.
“Every year it’s been something,” O’Leary said. “The year we were battling for the points, that was the only one we ran the whole season. Then we lost it on the last night.
“It seems like we’ve had nothing but bad luck all the time. Hopefully going back to the basics is working out.”
Rainy days
It has been an awful season weather-wise at both Illiana and Grundy County Speedway, with Illiana owner Mike Mikuly already losing eight dates to rain and/or flooding, and Grundy promoter Ron Snow losing all or a part of five.
Misery-wise, they’ve both got a ways to go to catch the late Norm Weltmeyer, who in 1975 saw his only season as a promoter at Kankakee Speedway turn into a disaster.
“Holy mackerel,” said Dave Weltmeyer, Norm’s son and a Chicagoland asphalt racing legend. “I want to say 12 out of 18 nights were rained out. It was terrible. There was an eight-week span when there was no racing there because of rain. Two months of Friday nights were gone.
“We would run at Grundy (on the asphalt), but they’d get rained out at Kankakee (a dirt track). My dad was not a guy who left when it rained a little bit. He’d stay and they’d try to get it in every time. It was crazy.”
It would turn out to be a one-year stay.
“It broke him,” Dave Weltmeyer said. “He had to give it up. He put so much money into the place and he never got any shows in. He promoted that one year and had to let it go.”
Coming up
A 40-lap street stock special will top the program Friday at Grundy County Speedway, while the late-models, Mid-Ams and 4-cylinders will run their regular show..
Saturday, Illiana Speedway will try again to host Kids Night, with ride-alongs, big wheel races, a candy and nickel toss and bike giveaways.
Twitter: @tbaranek