What Does NASCAR Have To Gain From A Street Race In Chicago?

After adding races in Los Angeles, Nashville, and St. Louis, does NASCAR really have anything to gain by dropping Road America for a street race in Chicago? Edward S., Durham, N.C.

To make a long story short: yes. NASCAR, billion-dollar company that it is, has access to the kind of market research and data that us mere mortals can only dream of, and NASCAR wouldn’t do anything without knowing for sure it would be financially worth it. 

Backing up a bit, Adam Stern reported for Sports Business Journal on Friday (June 17) that NASCAR is close to a deal that would send the NASCAR Cup Series to a street race in downtown Chicago, presumably on the lakeshore, at or near the location of the fictional Chicago street circuit that debuted on iRacing last summer. 

.@NASCAR is getting closer to announcing a new street race in Chicago that would start next year, per sources.

🔲 Not yet clear who would lose a race, but NASCAR appears open to dropping a road course and Road America doesn’t have a deal yet for 2023.

🔗:https://t.co/3EWWqMLXwO pic.twitter.com/dV4LH0dCfN

— Adam Stern (@A_S12) June 17, 2022

The fact that Road America in nearby Elkhart Lake, Wis. does not have a contract for a 2023 event, and that Steve Phelps indicated to NASCAR on FOX that the series was happy with the number of road courses currently on the schedule, has led to much speculation that the historic 4-mile venue will lose its Independence Day weekend Cup date for 2023. 

Now, I must admit over the last several years I have become quite a fan of street races. I’ll concede that they don’t always make for the most thrilling TV for the NTT IndyCar or Formula 1, but the at-track (technically, not-track) experience is second to none. 

Race cars on regular roads is a spectacle, one that makes motorsports look truly awesome to attendees with only casual knowledge: To those of us who watch NASCAR weekly, a street course might not look all that fast, but to someone used to being stuck in traffic at the intersection Chase Elliott just took at 120 mph, it’s otherworldly.

NASCAR’s first modern-era experimentation with temporary venues came at February’s Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum, on a quarter-mile bullring constructed inside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the heart of the City of Angels. The event was an undeniable success, drawing an estimated crowd of 60,000, with approximately two-thirds of spectators reporting that it was their first time attending a…