Nothing got the old juices flowing like heading off to one of the many auditoriums in the area and getting to see dazzling hot rods, race cars, experimental vehicles, all in their 'Sunday Best', polished ’til you could see your face in them. Automotive vendor booths, racing swag for sale, fair-type food, and the booths that may or may NOT have had anything to DO with racing. T-Shirts and mag-wheels? You BET! Caricature-artists or that guy with the goofy orange towels? Not so much, but I'll bet more than a few of us plopped down a dollar or three at one of those as well.

Now, before you suggest, "Uh, hey, Chicago, it’s not like these things ever went AWAY", yes, I am more than aware, but I'm steering this towards a different era, when it was a long, LONG time in between The Nationals and The Olympics of Drag Racing. Come now, as we fire up Mister Peabody’s 'Way-Back Machine', as we re-visit four shows I experienced through the years: the first, the most recent, and sandwiched in the middle, the "Game Changers.”

I would LOVE to be able to recall, in extreme and complete detail, the first car show (also the first car ANYTHING) I ever attended, but alas, 1968 was a long time ago, and I wasn't exactly taking notes. I do know I was beyond excited, and was told in advance that my brothers were bringing me along for the trip. (I never heard my Old Man telling them, "You’re taking your little brother too!", but as I DO remember him telling me, before we left, to "not be a little pest", I suspect he probably went to bat for me on this deal.) The week leading up to the big day seemed to crawl by, and like every Chicago area kid, you listened to WLS AM, and when the radio spots for World of Wheels came on (probably voiced by Jan Gabriel, the voice of the US 30 spots) the hair just stood up on your neck.

The day comes, we pile into the car, the drive seems to take forever, but I keep my mouth shut (again, "pest") but rolling into the city, knowing you’re getting closer as you pass the giant 'Magikist' sign, and even better, the 'Nickey Chevrolet' sign, but you KNOW you’re almost at 4220 Halstead Street, aka the International Amphitheatre, when you could smell the STINK that was the Union Stockyards (am I the only one who hears those words in his head in a 'Sinatra voice'?) and well, in one word? BIG! It seemed like we walked for hours, never overlapped exhibits, and “learning experience” doesn't even begin to describe it. THAT, my friends, was the day I learned a new term, that being "metal flake" -- all the cars I liked the best sported this look.

As I wanted to experience more car stuff like this, I made the Old Man proud, and the reward for 'not being a pest' was our hitting a goodie booth on the way out, where I was told I could have something, "under five dollars". I studied and stared, but not for long as I spotted it almost immediately. A "postcard-pennant" (like such a thing could be mailed!), touting something called the National Hot Rod Association, and a twin-engine dragster, purple, with FLAMES, smoking the tires! (Eddie Hill, for the record.) Hello, world, guess what I'll be obsessed with for the rest of my life!

We bid farewell to the south side, head it on home, but as Hoffman men have a flair for the dramatic -- nay, the 'investigative journalists' within us all -- we took a side trip down Madison Avenue and drove past the Starr Hotel, notorious in that it was where psycho-murderer Richard Speck was apprehended. And when I say "drove", we were probably doing 40 mph in a 20-zone, while my big brother did a "Griswoldian" command to 'Lock Em!' (the car doors) because, it wasn't exactly a nice neighborhood; a nice place to visit, sure, but you wouldn't want to end up a statistic there.

Fast forward ten something years, and I find myself in Arlington Heights, at the legendary horse race track of the same name for the Popular Hot Rodding car show. It’s February, it’s cold, the lot is just BARELY plowed, so it’s gonna be a day of wet feet, but there's no place you'd rather be. Adding to the mystique is that this particular establishment is a 'Santo-esque' homerun from the first McDonald’s I ever ate at as a lad. That was when you got your 15-cent hamburger at the counter and took it back to the car! (No indoor-eating or ball-pit playgrounds back then!) You could literally squint across Hwy. 14 and see the horses beginning their stretch run, whether you could ACTUALLY hear Phil Georgeff booming from the PA (or you mind just knew it from the evening news) that "HERE they come, SPINNING outta the turn!" What I'm saying is that THIS was hallowed ground and a perfect place to continue the mid-winter bliss that was car shows.