NASCAR’s Chicago Street Course Is The Best Race On The Calendar, But The Party Might Be Over Forever

NASCAR’s annual race in downtown Chicago is a tremendous spectacle of roaring V8s, crunched carbon fiber, and fun for everyone. Getting this race to happen for the first time in 2023 was practically a miracle, and it paid off with huge viewership numbers. The fans love Chicago, the drivers love racing here, and the series stakeholders love how well it synergizes their deliverables or whatever. Unfortunately the future of the race is in doubt as the three-year event contract with the city has run out and looks unlikely to be renewed. 

In going downtown, NASCAR took a page out of the Formula E playbook, putting the race directly in the face of people who don’t typically go to races or watch the series. “It accomplished what we wanted to accomplish: Bringing the race to the fans and not the fans to the race,” says driver Michael McDowell. Event promoters told The Athletic that over 80% of tickets for the event in 2023 were sold to people who had never been to a NASCAR race before, with that number around 70% for 2024. This weekend’s race was tracking similarly. 

You would think that building on these successes would be a priority for the city and the series, but the bureaucratic obstacles in their way may put an end to it all. The event’s three-year contract has come to a close, though there was an option to extend the event through 2026 and 2027 if the city chooses to allow it. NASCAR, for its part, might be looking to flake on the contract extension anyway. There are already plenty of NASCAR events represented in the region, including Iowa, Indianapolis, and Michigan. Not to mention Illinois already has another NASCAR event at Worldwide Technology Raceway. Conversely, NASCAR is reportedly closing a deal to run a street course race in San Diego which could not only take the street course spot on the series calendar, but also deliver the series a Southern California region nut it’s been begging to crack for years. 

For the first time in the three years of the event the Chicago street race wasn’t significantly delayed or run long due to weather. Rain certainly threatened all day, but held off until after the checkered flag fell, treating the gathered masses in the windy city to a glorious knock-down drag-out street fight. A big crash from Carson Hocevar slamming the wall early in the running caused a lengthy caution when he collected half a dozen more cars behind him, but once that was clear, it was pretty much just down to some of the best street course racing the world has ever seen. 

Yes, New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen won his second Chicago event in three years, the guy is a monster on a street course. Yes, it was entertaining as all hell. There were a few lengthy cautions, and of course the NASCAR stage break caution procedure makes so little sense on a road course event, but it was a pretty eventful race watching SVG rise through the field a few times, and then in the closing stages after preserving his tires better than everyone else, just walk the field to finish under caution. It was a good race, and I’m glad to have watched it. Chicago is one of those NASCAR events that I have been glued to the screen for the last three years, it’s just immensely entertaining to watch these drivers shove these behemoths through the tight confines and sharp corners of a city street. 

With difficulties coming from the massive costs associated with running a race in the center of Chicago, it might end up being more trouble than NASCAR thinks it’s worth. As the only street course race on the series calendar, some fear the event isn’t representative of “the core NASCAR product,” as Chase Elliot told the Athletic. The Hendrick Motorsports driver wants to see city oval racing, like the now-defunct Clash exhibition race at the Los Angeles Coliseum or a short track at the Nashville Fairgrounds. Putting a new and fun experience on track every once in a while is truly key to the success of the series, and they’re killing it.

Unlike most NASCAR events held at dedicated race tracks as far from city centers as you can get, Chicago brings a unique challenge, rewards a different style of driving, and puts the series in front of a bunch of people who otherwise might not be interested. It’s also a whole lot of fun. The street course in Chicago is one of the few things NASCAR champ Kyle Larson agree on. Larson told The Athletic reporter Jeff Gluck that this is his favorite race of the massive 38-event season, “I mean, name a better one.” Putting NASCAR’s highly competitive Cup cars on the street in one of the most beautiful cities in the country with a generous cultural mélange of restaurants, attractions, and accommodations? And the racing is fun and good? Yeah, that’s gotta be a highlight of the season, for sure.

For once in my lifetime, NASCAR is taking some big swings in recent years by visiting some unorthodox tracks and doing weird and interesting things like the Charlotte Roval, building a dirt track at Bristol, running at Bowman Gray Stadium, or heading to Mexico City. Even if Chicago doesn’t return to the NASCAR calendar in 2026, I have to applaud them for delivering three incredible weekends on the shores of Lake Michigan. I can’t wait to see what comes next.