Nascar Eyes Deep Dive For Future Host Cities After Chicago Street Race

When the Covid-19 pandemic shut down major sports leagues in 2020, Nascar found a unique way to keep its fans enthused. The sanctioning body held virtual iRacing events each week with its core competitors, going to tracks old and new via simulators in drivers’ homes or in team shops.

At first, an event on the streets of Chicago didn’t seem real. It was quite video game-like, with Nascar racecars roaring past skyscrapers. It’s a concept that has been in Nascar video games for almost two decades.

In November 2020, iRacing took the first steps, scanning the streets of Chicago. The technology was so realistic that it made Nascar stop and believe this could become a reality. This past weekend, Nascar held its inaugural Chicago Street Race in Grant Park, highlighted by New Zealand’s Shane van Gisbergen taking home the trophy in his Nascar debut. It’s the first time a driver has won their first start since Johnny Rutherford in 1963.

“Obviously we’re going to have a very deep dive postmortem after this event,” Ben Kennedy, Nascar’s senior vice president of racing development and racing strategy, said in a post-race press conference. “A lot of surveys will go out collecting a lot of feedback. Of course, there were a lot of things that went according to plan; there were some things that didn’t go according to plan obviously with the weather.”

Now, Nascar is looking at the future of street course races. The opportunities are endless.

Even with major challenges, including local complaints about traffic and noise, Nascar managed to host a race right in the middle of America’s third-largest city, and it included one of the most famous streets in the United States, Michigan Avenue. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson attended the spectacle, but he didn’t say if Nascar will return to Chicago next year.

“Like everything else I inherited, I’m a teacher, so I will assess it and grade it and it will be an open process where other folks get a chance to weigh in,” the mayor said without acknowledging Nascar’s three-year agreement with the city.

Julie Giese, who served as the president of the Chicago Street Race and is Nascar’s go-to person for innovative projects (Daytona Rising, reconstruction of Phoenix Raceway’s infield), did meet with the mayor and other local officials prior to the event to address concerns.

Prior to the event, Nascar announced it was expecting approximately 50,000 people to attend each day. That number has not been finalized, especially with the torrential downpours that plagued Chicago on Sunday. However, NBC had a 2.52 rating and 4.632 million viewers, which is the most viewed race on the platform in six years. It was also the most streamed race ever on Peacock, and NBC Sports digital, with 163,500 viewers.

“As we said going through the scheduling process, this is a journey,” Kennedy said. “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 one. 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.”

Now, Nascar is determined to see what other cities are willing to host its events. Nascar’s Chief Operating Officer Steve O’Donnell was emphatic that the sport can be run anywhere in the world.

“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, and we do that with the industry, and I know the race we put on today would sell and would be embraced globally for sure,” O’Donnell said.

It is unknown what other cities Nascar is targeting for the future, but Denver and New York City are among large markets that have had a reporting interest.

Recently, New York City Mayor Eric Adams pursued a bid with Liberty Media and Formula 1 to host a F1 race in the Big Apple. The original proposal was to have an event on Randall’s Island. But Liberty Media President and CEO Greg Maffei rejected this plan. This could be ideal for Nascar, however, which has an office on Madison Avenue.

Meanwhile, Long Beach, St. Petersburg, Detroit, Nashville and Toronto are all playing host to street races for the NTT IndyCar Series this year.

Nascar reportedly paid around $50 million to host the Chicago Street Race.