Chicago’s NASCAR Race is a Marvel of Physics
176,940
Published 2024-06-27
_Special Thanks_
+ Evan Montgomery — coproducer, filming, editing
_Description_
This video explores the intricate planning and design that transformed the heart of Chicago into a 2.2-mile race track for NASCAR's Next Gen cars. It comes from a combination of cutting-edge technology, historical motorsport legacy, and urban planning to create this unique racing experience. From the car itself to the layout and surface of the streets, everything works together to make the event possible. There’s another key development that helped make it possible as well. Sim racing, specifically iRacing who created a digital twin of the course to design and test the conditions, ensuring the best possible layout for both racers and spectators. Then Chicago made real-world modifications to the streets to address safety, performance, and spectator experience, based on data from virtual races.
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_About the Channel_
Architecture with Stewart is a YouTube journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
_About Me_
Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
_Contact_
FOLLOW me on instagram: @stewart_hicks & @designwithco
Design With Company: designwith.co/
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture: arch.uic.edu/
_Special Thanks_
Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, Storyblocks, and Shutterstock.
Music provided by Epidemic Sound
#architecture #urbandesign
All Comments (21)
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I’m a Chicagoan, former negative critic and now a 100% supporter. More events in downtown Chicago are really needed to keep the city going. It’s in an area outside the center and does not block major through street so doesn’t disrupt downtown too much. Downtown Chicago is huge, several miles long and a couple miles wide in case people don’t know.
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Incorporating a My Cousin Vinny clip is always a great idea.
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You know what's funny though? The step down from the Cup series, the Xfinity series, also races on the Chicago street course and that car still has all of the older tech and it did just fine.
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Stewart Hicks doing NASCAR wasn't on my bingo card, but being Chicago I'm not surprised in the slightest!
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I didn't realize my favorite architect is also a car guy. You just went up in my book, sir.
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I think this is a successful move. I'm a big racing fan, but I just never got into NASCAR. This is the first time i'm probably going to watch a race.
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As a dedicated nascar fan and a fan of yours, you did an awesome job with this video. Thank you for respecting the sport and the different things it’s trying to do.
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That's super cool. Got into Nascar the past 2 or so years. Fairly new to it. Had no idea iRacing played such a big role in the development of the track layout.
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My favorite architecture Youtuber made a NASCAR video!!!!! I love it when I'm at the center of a Venn diagram that looks like two circles until you zoom in
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I've watched you for years, but seeing a video about not only racing but iRacing which i have thousands of hours on is a surprise! Great video
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Heard a rumor that F1 is also considering Chicago. Gridlife - one of the best grassroots motorsports companies out there is based in Chicagoland, there's a huge gearhead community here.
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This video is amazingly informational, accurate, and entertaining for an architecture blog taking on auto racing as a topic. My compliments! I consider myself a very well rounded racing fan, and I learned something too. I was extremely skeptical of this event before the initial running. Your discussion of the infrastructure improvements and sim racing exercise helped me understand how they ended up with an exciting but highly functional venue.
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It was one of the best days of my life to see that race. I'd been a NASCAR fan since age 7 and for 13 years I really wanted to see a Chicago street race.
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So many people hate on this and I don't know why. I live in the downtown area and thought this was a neat way to bring a different crowd to Chicago so they can see for themselves that it's nowhere near as bad as they think it is. It was pretty fascinating to watch on TV as well. The first year might've been a net loss in terms of profits. But, rarely do things like this do well in the first 5 years or so. It's an investment that takes time to build upon.
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Architecture takes many forms. This is a great video for many of them. I thought I knew something about NASCAR and iRacing, now I know a lot more.
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10:06 The joke in my head when I saw "Designed in Germany"...
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Indycar has been racing on the streets of several cities for decades. Street races this year include Long Beach, St Pete, Detroit, and Toronto.
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Can't believe I'm sending a link to one of my favourite Architectural YouTubers to all my racing fan friends but here we are! Such a well done video, with such an interesting take on the subject.
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As a long time NASCAR fan and more recent fan of Chicago, this is a very cool crossover between my two interests. Great analysis!
