Taking it to the streets: Chicago debut showcases NASCAR on big-city stage, hints at what's next
CHICAGO — Steve O’Donnell said the logistical race-day meetings began Sunday morning at 6 a.m., nearly 12 hours before the Chicago Street Race’s main event would take the green flag. It was many more hours before everyone’s socks, shoes and any clothing not covered by a poncho would dry out.
“What are we going to do, what’s it look like,” were the questions that O’Donnell, NASCAR’s chief operating officer, and his group worked through, coordinating with city representatives, competition officials and everyone else who made the first street-circuit weekend for stock-car racing’s top series come together. The touch-bases continued every half-hour, O’Donnell said, even as the Windy City morphed into one of the rainiest places in the country for a day.
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By the time the meetings had ended, the Chicago Street Race weekend had delivered a Cup Series race worth remembering — a hard-to-fathom feat that was built on taking a chance and seeing such a dream through. The circumstances and coordination and communication required to make the unique stock-car event a reality would have proven challenging even with ideal, chamber-of-commerce weather, but the degree of difficulty spiked in the face of record-setting rain that briefly turned pit road into a canal.
It didn’t stop the curious from turning out to see what the commotion was, even with uncertainty about a Sunday start and whether the conditions would allow the event to happen. Once the skies finally relented and lifted to provide a pleasant sunset, residents and hotel guests peered out of the surrounding trackside buildings, and new fans captured the action from cell phones, stacking into the temporary grandstands or finding higher ground wherever possible at each of the 12 corners.
Justin Marks, the founder of Trackhouse Racing, had every reason to be beaming after bringing Kiwi import Shane van Gisbergen to the Cup Series for a victorious debut in the team’s Project 91 entry. But Marks also indicated there was a sense of pride and accomplishment that stretched beyond his organization.
“I’m a big fan because I think that there’s an important — it’s important for racing series to take the product to the fans and to be able to take it into these cities and expose a lot of new fans to it,” Marks said. “I’ve been a huge fan of the Chicago Street Race, the concept of NASCAR going street racing from the get-go. A huge supporter of it, and I think that they knocked it out of the park this weekend. The track was great. Everybody was really — there was a ton of people there, everybody walking the sidewalks and really excited about it. And even in the industry, everybody that I talked to in the garage area was like, man, I had some trepidation about it, but this is unbelievable. This is awesome. Everybody was wide-eyed and really excited about it.”
The real-world hype had been established well before any of the track’s barriers had been set into place. The Cup Series schedule used to be something you could set your wristwatch by — a counted-on repetition that was comforting in some ways, but humdrum in so many others.
The reveal of the NASCAR calendar each year now has some oomph to it, with new tracks and new places to showcase the sport — in a football stadium at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, on a makeshift dirt track at Bristol or in a brilliantly revived speedway once left for dead in North Wilkesboro. Add downtown Chicago as the latest chapter of this innovative era for illustrating what’s possible.
“As we said going through the scheduling process, this is a journey,” said Ben Kennedy, NASCAR senior vice president of racing development and racing strategy. “We announced a lot of things in our 2021 schedule, we went to new markets. Next evolution of that for us, naturally the Coliseum. This is kind of the next iteration of that. And as we go through it, we’re by no means saying that everything is going to be perfect from Day 1. But you don’t know unless you try, and we gave it a really good effort today, and certainly proud of all the work that everyone has done.
“I think the city showed so well, certainly on broadcast today, and then the energy around the field and around the park today was palpable.”
MORE: Recap Chicago Street Race moments | Official race results
What’s next for the time being, Kennedy said, is a wide-ranging post-mortem on what took place. That includes what went off-plan, including an extra-abbreviated Xfinity Series race and the storm-related cancellation of a pair of concerts that sapped a smidge of the festival feel, but what else went right as officials and organizers stayed nimble to quickly get going once the weather allowed. The drying-out process included a compelling race, one that delivered on the otherworldly aspect and thrill of a rumbling pack of cars darting through Grant Park with Chicago’s postcard-quality skyline looming.
What’s next in the longer-term scope is a blue-sky range of possibilities — a potential return for Round 2 in Chicago or taking the Cup Series to another metropolitan area, either stateside or abroad. NASCAR’s participation in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the Garage 56 project exposed the sport to the European motoring crowd last month, and American stock-car racing is getting some extra pop Down Under with van Gisbergen’s stunning triumph in his first NASCAR go.
O’Donnell noted that global presence in his post-race remarks, and the prevailing thought of an international expansion for NASCAR’s top tours has gained momentum. Chicago’s proof-of-concept statement this weekend made an important step in that direction.
“I’m not going to put a timetable on it, but I think we’re all confident at NASCAR that we could take the Cup Series anywhere we want,” O’Donnell said, “and we do that with the industry, and I think — I don’t think, I know the race we put on today would sell and would be embraced globally for sure.”
