I don’t know if this is a good idea or not, but I’m definitely intrigued. And, it won’t affect my neighborhood directly.
So, what exactly is a NASCAR Chicago Street Race? Should I be excited? Is it going to look like a 2 hour long movie chase scene?
Nearly all NASCAR races are on oval tracks (the “drive fast, turn left” tracks); they hold a small number of races on “road courses” (purpose-built racetracks that are more complex, and interesting, than ovals).
Other racing leagues run city races, in which the cars race along a city’s streets – the Monaco Grand Prix, a Formula 1 race that goes through the streets of Monte Carlo, is the most famous of those. NASCAR hasn’t held one of those in many years (if ever), but the Indy Car circuit does a few city street races (this year, their schedule includes several street races).
The article below includes a Twitter link to a map of the proposed street course for the Chicago race – it’s a modified figure-eight-shaped course, in Grant Park. The round curve in the southwestern corner of the map (corners 8-10) should be fun, as it’s the curve at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Congress Parkway, which will have the cars going up and down a small hill.
Like the drivers will have time for sightseeing.
Back in 1986 and 1987 the NASCAR Winston West series raced on a street course in Tacoma, Washington. At the time, Winston West cars were the same as the Winston Cup cars. The race in 1986 was full of cautions, most were for cars hitting the barriers. I think the longest green flag run was only 5 laps. Future Winston Cup driver Derrike Cope led most of the race till he hit a barrier, this allowed the legendary Hershel McGriff to win the race. They were the only 2 cars to finish on the lead lap.
In 1987, some changes were made in the track, one was to eliminate a hair pin turn that caused most of the carnage from the first race. Most of the drivers learned from the previous year and instead of running into the barriers, they spent time running into each other. And like the previous year, about half the race was run under caution. This race was a bit more competitive that the previous with a number of different drivers taking a turn up front. Future Cup regular Chad Little won the race after 2 other drivers that were battling for the lead performed a synchronized spin in turn 1 with a few laps to go.
The racing then will be totally different in Chicago next year. The cars are totally different, the drivers are much better and the course will be designed around the Cup cars. It will not be a high speed race, the cars will only hit 100 mph in a few spots. Most of the course is 90 degree turns at about 30 mph. The race won’t be like any of the current road courses on the NASCAR schedule, I think it will be like a race at Martinsville, lots of nose to tail racing and drivers bumping each other out of the way.
Given the number of posters from Chicago, I’m surprised there haven’t been more posts about this afternoon’s planned race. I couldn’t care less about Nascar, but thought I’d tune in to see the views of cars racing along the lakefront and Michigan Ave.
For those not in the area, Chicago has been in a pretty severe drought the past 3 months -up until today. It has been raining nonstop since about 8 a.m., and I measure over 3" in my backyard rain gauge. I think that is more than I’ve had over the past 3 months combined! It has been so dry, that we have found it extremely pleasant just to sit and listen to the rain and watch the lawn green up.
But what a debacle for the event planners, who only needed halfway decent weather - like the seemingly endless string of dry days we’ve been having. Instead, concerts have been cancelled, one race truncated. I’m sure great numbers of fans are staying home, and those who attend will likely turn Grant Park into a mudpit.
How wet does it have to be to rain out a Nascar race?
I’m a Chicagoan and yes this weather sucks today. I had Cubs tickets last night but didn’t go because of the the rain, they did start the game like 2 hours late.
It’s been nothing but non stop rain today. Since this race is a street twice, I’d assume moving it to Monday would be a huge logistical mess. Sure, office workers are likely to just stay home or already have scheduled the day off, but there’s a lot of people who do need to get around the city starting Monday. Also, being the week of the 4th, I imagine a lot of tourists are coming in tomorrow and were avoiding NASCAR
Always struck me as a curious choice - to jam up the lakefront/Grant Park/museum campus on the weekend of the 4th. Tho they used to do the same for Taste. But once they decided to do it, I guess I kinda wished it would go off well. Can’t imagine how many disappointed viewers and vendors there are.
The [url=https://www.nascarchicago.com/course-layout/[/url]course flyover on the Nascar website looks pretty cool. I spent many many hours around the area running the lakefront over lunch, running the marathon. It is sorta cool to see it on TV.
Flash flood warnings today too.
It’s 220 miles to the finish, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of smokes, it’s raining, and we’re wearing helmets.
I’m sure it would be, too, though, from what I heard earlier today, if they somehow can’t finish this race today (which has finally just started, just now), the plan is to complete it tomorrow. I imagine that they had already planned to keep the road closures in place through the holiday, anyway.
Yeah, I’d imagine that kind of tear down takes longer than a typical street festival which is done by early Monday mornings for a typical street festival.
Here’s the highlights before it got cancelled (the reason being lightning).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EqtgVkOsU4
That’s from yesterday’s Xfinity Cup race, the “Loop 121” – it was essentially the “undercard” race, and the Xfinity Cup series is NASCAR’s second-tier race series. They stopped it partway through due to lightning, with the original intent to complete it early today, but with torrential rain here in Chicago this morning, they cancelled the remainder of that race.
The Grant Park 220 is running right now, and is the NASCAR Cup (NASCAR’s top-level series) race for this weekend. Both races run on the same street course.
Nm 345
Due to a late start for the race, and lots of caution flags, it was looking like they weren’t going to get the race done before it gets dark. So, NASCAR has just shortened the race to 75 laps (from 100).
Probably a good idea to shorten it but get it wrapped up today. It may not even be possible for people who traveled here to extend their stay with the very high hotel occupancy in River north and the Loop and I think many locals are just tired of it.
Any idea if it’s coming back next year? This is unusually awful weather for July, but I don’t think this really helped NASCAR get new eyeballs nor helps the City of Chicago as I doubt this was profitable at all
Good Lord this was so much fun! I used to watch a little F1, and never NASCAR, but I found it so enjoyable. The Mario Kart-ness of the slick conditions helped a bit in terms of entertainment, but I was rooting for the New Zealander most of the way. I would love to see it again here.
For the first part, I don’t know. It certainly got a lot more people watching NASCAR among my peer group, because nobody I know watches NASCAR and they were watching this, even my wife (we were not watching together.) But that very well may just be a one-off. On the other hand, I am now more likely to watch a non-oval track NASCAR race. Before this, I thought they were all ovals. And I didn’t realize these were not clutchless paddle shifting cars, but normal cars with a clutch and a stick. (I know it’s a “stock car”, but I didn’t know it was set up like that.) So I learned a bit. As to the latter, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a loss financially. Aren’t a lot of these high spectacle things like the Olympics loss leaders? Don’t really give too much a shit about that. Glad it got Chicago some nice exposure. For me it was worth it, despite the pain in the ass the last week has been around DuSable Lake Shore Drive near Grant Park.
Mostly, but not entirely, as I understand it. The NASCAR Cup schedule has a couple of “road course” events every year, including one on the Watkins Glen race course in upstate New York. But, their series is indeed, largely on oval tracks, which is one reason why NASCAR is sometimes referred to as “go fast, turn left.”
During the coverage of this race, they regularly noted that this was the first time that NASCAR has ever raced on a street course (that is, on actual city streets), a type that’s not uncommon in open-wheel racing, like Formula One and Indycars.
I did find it entertaining to watch; the combination of wet pavement and tight corners led to a lot of spinouts and crashing into barriers, but the slow speed probably made it a safer race – there were no major accidents.
I am under the impression that a considerable part of Chicago’s city government would not. The weather problems did not make the case for returning next year any better.