Why the 2024 Chicago Street Race Is More Important Than Last Year

What are you looking forward to most in the Chicago Street Race?

Real mystery is how many times is Noah Gragson going to find the tire barriers

As someone who lives 5 minutes away from Chicagoland, please bring back Chicagoland

It could be more interesting for SVG. Yeah, he’s the defending winner but he’s in a Kaulig car, not a Trackhouse car. And Kaulig’s been very underwhelming this year.

I'd prefer them race at Road America as an IMSA fan primarily, but the Chicago race was a whole lot better than I was expecting.

This race last year is what got me back in nascar.

The good thing is, unlike SoCal, NASCAR has Chicagoland kept up and updated in case the street race fails this year. Once the deal is up, they should go back, this war against F1 is petty at best

I would only support brimging Chicagoland back as a part of a double-header with the street course. The season is too long to spend two weeks in Chicago when we can easily do a double-header, and we really should keep doing the street course to keep NASCAR and stock car racing as a whole mainstream. Too many times has stock car racing been screwed over by being a booming real estate market: AutoClub, Nashville Fairgrounds and many historic South Carolina tracks to name a few. We need to keep fighting to maintain our spot in the sports world

the prices for tickets is insane 1500 dollars for 2 people this race is being pushed by the city for money definitely need to go back to Chicagoland

a warning before showing Beetlejuice would be nice...

Hopefully they have great weather. Pretty good concert line up!

And my friends who were actually race fans who lived in Chicago aren't going this year because of price.

Bring back chicagoland... we revived the fanbase there. Street course racing should stay though, if not twice a year (new fans!)

1:03 Mayor Beetlejuice

TBH, I was VERY cynical about the Chicago race. I expected a procession of drivers who were completely out of their comfort zone, who would struggle to gauge the limits of both the cars and track, with the only passing being via accident, or pit work. Then I heard that SVG had signed up to race. That changed everything, as it meant there was a known benchmark driver in the field. Yes, I kinda expected SVG to get pole, run off into the distance, and totally dominate the weekend, but that was mainly due to having watched him do so in the Aussie Supercars series for much of the past decade. To see that SVG wasn't on pole, and that the race was likely to be wet, well that took the race from a "might watch" to a "will watch", and it was the first NASCAR race I watched live in... a good few years. (Being in the UK, watching races live is a pain, with most starting around midnight.) For this second year, seeing that there's a 30+% chance of rain, I'm not sure what to hope for. Rain races are always entertaining, but I'd like to see how the circuit races in the dry as well. Eh, I dunno. As for the race staying in Chicago, I'm fine with that if the city wants it. Or I'd be fine if the race moved to another city, just as long as there's a street race. For NASCAR to expand it's markets outside the USA, it needs to do more than just ovals, and street courses are a common thing elsewhere in the world. To the average European or Asian motorsports fan, seeing a NASCAR blatting down a city street is MUCH more relatable than seeing one on an oval, largely because we've all driven in city streets. It's an environment we understand, and can envision the difficulty involved in racing in that environment, unlike racing on an oval. And with that understanding, comes appreciation of the skills shown, and a potential for greater interest in the sport as a whole. NASCAR needs a street circuit to expand its reach on the global motorsports stage. More eyes watching attracts more sponsors, even if those eyes aren't all in the USA...

I don't want to burst anyone's bubbles but looking at the weather, it's gonna be another rainy street course race. (Rain through Friday, dry-ish Saturday, rain returning Sunday afternoon)

Checking the daily weather for Chicago area, looks like some nice sunny weather on both race days.

I got my mom to watch this race last year she didn't believe they were actually racing on the streets.

I just hope Fans will give this event a chance this time. Last year was a big success, but I just hope also that the weather cooperates this time.

Best case scenario long term, July 4th weekend becomes NASCAR's annual street course race where they go to the biggest cities in the country to race. I'd say a street race should either get 2-4 years on the schedule before going to another city, or at some point if we're lucky we can get a consistent rotation of cities where lets say we'd go to Chicago once every 4 years with 3 other cities filling the gap. I just hope NASCAR doesn't get too crazy with it by adding a bunch of street courses to the schedule. I'd be fine with 2 but 1 is perfectly fine.