Yahoo Autos NASCAR Makes It to Chicago... Here's Where the Series Might Go Next
This weekend’s historic event is the first on a three-year contract between NASCAR and Chicago.
If all goes well at Chicago, stock car racing might come out with its head high.
But if things go even slightly sideways, cities reportedly calling NASCAR about a street race might reconsider.
With NASCAR soon to present the first street race in its 75-year history, it’s not unreasonable to look ahead to other new events it might be considering. Some in due time, of course; others, probably not at all.
The people in Daytona Beach have been offering high-banked, high-speed, long-distance Cup Series races for years, since the inaugural Southern 500 in 1950. Its cars have raced around football fields and on baseball diamonds. They’ve been on airport runways and Atlantic Ocean beaches. NASCAR has run hundreds of short-track races and more than 100 road races on permanent or temporary circuits.
And now … the Grant Park 220, the first of its 2,731 races on downtown public streets. Let’s finally check that off the aging bucket list and look ahead.
Okay, NASCAR … what’s next?
Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal
Why not a Cup-IndyCar doubleheader at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on the Ile Notre-Dame in Montreal? IndyCar last raced there 2002-2006 and the NASCAR Xfinity Series had a presence 2007-2012. Although the 2.710-mile road course is used primarily for the Canadian Grand Prix, it’s likely that IndyCar and NASCAR team owner Roger Penske could make it happen.
In February, Steve O’Donnell told Sports Business Journal that NASCAR wanted to take Cup to Mexico or Canada in hopes of expanding its global reach. Last year, at the World Congress of Sports, Cup president Steve Phelps said, “Our 2024 schedule will probably be the most aggressive we’ve ever had in terms of continued variation with new markets and new tracks”. (The schedule is expected to be announced before Labor Day).
At last fall’s season-ending “State of the Sport” message, Phelps spoke more on the subject. “Do we believe there’s interest north and south of the border? Yeah, there’s interest,” he said. “(NASCAR executives) Ben Kennedy and Steve O’Donnell … their phones are ringing from cities across the country that are like, ‘We’d love to host a NASCAR race at our city.’ We have calls coming from north and south of the border. Whether that happens in 2024, I don’t know. What I do know is we’re going to have continued schedule variations.”
This weekend’s historic event is the first on a three-year contract between NASCAR and Chicago. If all goes well, stock car racing might come out with its head high, its reputation greatly enhanced. But if things go even slightly sideways—disappointing attendance, bad racing, technical and logistical issues, public access gaffes, traffic snarls—those cities reportedly calling about a street race might reconsider.
The whole thing is risky, as the Eagles mournfully sing … “this could be heaven or this could be hell.”
New York, New York
Other than an eye-opening doubleheader with IndyCar in Montreal, where else might NASCAR go to broaden its national presence and try to become more mainstream? (Please, please don’t suggest Mexico).
Ideally, of course, a weekend in New York City would fulfill NASCAR’s fondest dreams. Other than Chicago and its Fortune 500 companies, where better to take stock car racing than on the Big Apple’s world-famous streets? By a factor of one hundred, though, it would be NASCAR’s most daunting challenge, one it would almost certainly fail. (FYI: International Speedway Corp.’s bid to build an 80,000-seat speedway on Staten Island in 2005-2006 ended when a jam-packed public hearing turned ugly. Cowed by the residents’ vehement opposition, the three City Councilmen wisely denied ISC’s application to build the track).
