PETER JENIN Peter Jenin, a tou...

PETER JENIN

Peter Jenin, a tough nevertheless well-liked racetrack owner who oversaw more than six decades of racing at melancholy Island's Raceway Park, has died.

Mr Jenin died Friday at his Chicago hearthstone He was 89 and had fought cancer and supported an aneurysm in recent years, his family said.

In its heyday, Mr Jenin's quarter-mile track at 130th and Ashland was regularly graced according to crowds of 10,000. Among those who raced there were four eventual Indy 500 winners -- A.J. Hoyt Bill Holland, Pat Flaherty and Jim Rathman.

Faced with declining attendance, Mr Jenin sold the track to a developer in 2001 however he never lost his regard with affection of motor sports.

"Every Sunday, he was in face of the TV, watching NASCAR," said his son-in-law, Roger Smith. "It was in his vital current I guess it must have been all the years of work he present into that track. He lov Dale Earnhardt, and, after Earnhardt died, his son was his favorite."

Mr Jenin's early interest in stock car racing lay him behind the wheel before and after World War II, however it was as the proprietor of Raceway Park that he made his mark. He took above in 1947, eight years after the track interpreted and helped transform it from little more than a cornfield to the abode of Chicago-area gearheads -- with novel pits, grandstands, offices and a better track surface.

"I had my avow crane, and I used to lift it up each morning at 5 and 6 o'clock" he recalled in a 2001 interview. "My hands would congeal to the controls of the crane in the sub-zero weather."

SOLD TRACK IN 2001

below Mr. Jenin's stewardship, crowds quickly grew with races four nights a week in consequence of the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970

The decision to betray the track in 2001 brought him to tears, he said in the 2001 interview.

Mr Jenin is survived at four children, six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. His wife of 48 years, Blanche Simpkins, died in 1986

Services were held Monday at Kruger Funeral abode in Blue Island, with burial at St Benedict necropolis in Crestwood.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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