The sweeping changes that NASCAR has made to its schedule over the last several years has come at the expense of one of the biggest markets in the United States. Chicago has been without a race since Chicagoland Speedway was dropped from the schedule in 2020. That could soon change, though, as NASCAR is interested in making one of its more ambitious concepts a reality.
According to a report by Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal, NASCAR is in talks to bring a street course race to Chicago with the working goal to hold the event for the first time in 2023. The talks involve Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, as well as Chicago sports commission executive director Kara Bachman, but are said to be “complicated and not yet near completion.”
The idea of a street course race in Chicago has been in the works for awhile, as a conceptual layout — a 2.2-mile course adjacent to the city’s Soldier Field — was designed for iRacing and served as the site of a sim race in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series last year. The race was won by James Davison.
As NASCAR has sought to diversify its schedule, the idea of a street course race — something that has been a fixture of Formula 1 and IndyCar racing, as well as the NASCAR Pinty’s Series in Canada, has been further and further entertained.
But while the idea of a street course race has support within NASCAR, there are significant logistical and financial considerations that go into constructing a street course, as well as the idea of whether or not racing on such a circuit is actually feasible.
One NASCAR legend is not a fan of the Chicago plan.
During a recent episode of the Dale Jr. Download, NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. — who ran the Pro Invitational race at Chicago last year — expressed skepticism about the idea of actually racing in Chicago or on any other street course.
“I guess I need to ask, what’s fun about watching cars racing around a street course? I can’t answer that question for me. I can’t sit here and go, ‘Man, I wish we really had a street course,’ because I don’t know why street courses are better or different,” Earnhardt said. “… Watching the driver try to figure out how to navigate them, it’s fun because you see the drivers are struggling. It’s frustrating to sort of work around there. But that’s with Indy Lights and IndyCars.
“I will say in my experience in the virtual world on iRacing with the Chicago course didn’t make me more excited. I didn’t think that our cars went around there very well. But that’s the virtual world, and the real world is going to be a little different. So I’m still not eager for it.”
Regardless, NASCAR is seeking to get back into the greater Chicago market, where it held a significant presence for nearly two decades. NASCAR raced at Chicagoland Speedway in nearby Joliet from 2001 to 2019, but the track’s 2020 race weekend was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then was dropped from the schedule outright for 2021 onwards.
