5-0, school bus racing coming to Grundy County Speedway during Friday-Saturday double header

This time, speeding is the point: 5-0 racing featuring local police driving retired police cars are coming to the Grundy County Speedway Saturday, June 15.

Promoter Steve Bechtel said the 5-0 racing is meant to raise money for Special Olympics. The race will be made up of different police departments turning their retired police cars into race cars. There, they’ll determine who the fastest cop is.

“No professionals here,” Bechtel said. “It’s the actual cop. If you’re a cop from Morris or Blue Island or Joliet, you go out and get the car ready, raise the money, and then you actually race against other police officers.”

Instead of qualifying for the race by doing laps beforehand, the drivers are raising money. Whoever raises the most gets to start the race in first place.

“You can definitely tell they’re not regular drivers,” Bechtel said. “there’s a lot of crazy action. A lot of these guys have never raced before or they’ve only raced at police events. The crowd really gets into it because they’re backing their town.”

The 5-0 race is one of three new races coming to the Grundy County Speedway on Saturday. Another is the school bus races, which Bechtel said he’s excited for because the speedway worked hard building a figure-eight track over the winter. It’s the first time the Grundy County Speedway has ever had a track to do something like this.

“It’s wild,” Bechtel said. “It’s crazy, and we’re really just looking forward to using the figure-eight track for the first time.”

Bechtel said there’s been a buzz around the track over the buses, and it adds another layer to the racing on top of its typical Friday night action.

Friday night is its Armed Forces Night, with super late model, mid am, pure stock, midget and spectator drag races starting at 7:30 p.m. while the racing starts at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Saturday will also be the debut of the High School Racing Association at the Grundy County Speedway.

“We get some regular racing for fans that like regular racing and 5-0 that brings its own crowd of people that follow the drivers,” Bechtel said. “And then the bus races, so we have something that can appeal to everybody.”

To buy tickets or for information, visit grundycountyspeedwayonline.com.