JOLIET -- For years, the customers at Winner's Circle Speed and Custom clamored for a nearby race track.

   They complained to Jim Bingham, the speed shop's owner, about the two-hour drive to the nearest drag strip. Just seeing a few races was a lot of trouble. Naturally, Bingham favored the idea of a Will County track and wanted to build one himself. After all, he was in the right market.

   "There are more drag-strip cars in the Midwest than there are in any other part of the country," said Bingham, who has owned his business for 28 years. "It's very strong in the Chicago suburbs."

   And that's how the Route 66 Raceway began.

   By 1996, Bingham had done quite a bit of talking about the need during his weekly program devoted to racing on radio station WJOL. But by July of that year, talking was all he had done.

   Until the day Rex Steffes of Manhattan walked into the Winner's Circle. His family owned farmland near Schweitzer Road and southbound Illinois 53.

   "He said, 'I understand you want to build a drag strip,'" Bingham remembered. "I said I wanted to, but didn't have the money. He said, 'I have the land.' I thought, well, now we have a possibility."

   After that, one meeting led to another. Once Bingham and Steffes had joined forces, others got involved, too. Bingham decided to have plans drawn for a possible track, and he asked Jerry Papesh, owner of Geotech Inc., 1207 Crestwood Drive, to do the work. Papesh brought in George Barr, the Joliet developer.

   They began meeting weekly. Everyone wanted to build in Joliet. They thought the city would work to get the project done quickly. But there were other reasons to build here.

   "Everybody is from this area," said Dale Coyne, one of the nine partners in the venture and a member of the Payton-Coyne Racing team. "As it turns out this is a great location, in the middle of everything. We are on Route 66 and the city of Joliet was very helpful in getting the process done, I think."

   Being close to Interstate 80 enhances the track's location, Papesh said.

   "This is all industrial zoning around, so there won't be any residential here. People won't complain about the noise," Papesh added.

   Here's a time capsule of the events that followed:

   January 1997: The cornfields at Illinois 53 and Schweitzer Road were annexed into Joliet. The Joliet City Council unanimously approved plans for the racing facility one month later.

   April 1997: The track's future success was enhanced when racing legend A.J. Foyt withdrew his support from a planned racing facility south of Kankakee. And the owners of a similar planned facility in West Chicago backed out of building there because of environmental and community concerns.

   July 1997: Work began on the track's grounds.

   September 1997: The berms that surround the site had been built, much of the storm-sewer work had been done, and the outline of the drag strip was visible.

   January 1998: Raceway officials assure fans that the drag strip will be reserved a couple of nights a week for local bracket races and test and tune nights.

   April 1998: Officials unveiled plans for the inaugural season of racing. More than 90 racing days and at least two major concerts were planned.

   May 1, 1998: About 75 percent of the bleachers had been built. The track's lights were finished. The timing system was about to be installed.

   Mid-May, 1998: The drag strip opened for test drives.

   May 28-31, 1998: The Route 66 NHRA Nationals The world's best in Winston drag racing. Top fuel, funny car, pro stock, pro stock truck and pro stock bike races were held at the new track.