The Monday Hot Lap July 3, 2023: Chicago Street Race Recap and Thoughts
Photo Courtesy: Kye Bunn
Chicago Weekend Recap:
Through a weekend of weather delays and uncertainty NASCAR put on an absolute show in its first-ever street course race. Shane Van Gisbergen, the three-time Australian Supercars Champion, made NASCAR history by becoming the first driver to win in their Cup Series debut since 1963, a huge feat for Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 garage in just its third race.
NASCAR Xfinity Series No. 00 driver Cole Custer was named winner of The Loop 121 after it was cut off just short of halfway on Saturday due to a lightning strike within an eight-mile radius of the track. The race was unable to be resumed prior to Sunday’s Grant Park 220 due to rain and track flooding.
There were moments in which the entire event looked like it could end as a catastrophic failure as the weekend concerts in the park got canceled and the races were delayed and almost needed to be postponed. However, NASCAR showed flexibility and made a controversial decision, calling the Xfinity race final on Sunday despite rules stipulating that 50% of a race is to be run before being called. If a race is short of 50% complete it’s usually resumed at a later date. However, the temporary Chicago course made it impossible to resume later so they made the decision under uncontrollable circumstances.
NASCAR also had to shorten the Cup Series race from 100 to 75 laps during the race to accommodate for a lack of track lighting after starting late.
The sudden shortening caught race leader Christopher Bell and the front of the pack in a predicament with their pit timing compared to the rest of the field and it cost them valuable track position.
Van Gisbergen was one of the few if not the only front runner that made up significant ground. He went from 18th to 1st in the final 25-laps, beating out Kaulig Racing driver Justin Haley on a late restart.
Despite the skepticism entering the event and the troubles mother nature provided, NASCAR still managed to deliver an exciting product in a new market to a lot of new fans. At the end of the day, the first NASCAR street race will be remembered as an overall success. But, how does the future look now that NASCAR knows it has a GREAT product that can be brought to big market cities?
Race Notes:
Chevrolet swept the top five of the Cup race as Hendrick drivers Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson finished behind Haley and Van Gisbergen. Richard Childress Racing No. 8 driver Kyle Busch finished 5th.
Elliott now has three-straight top-five finishes coming off of his suspension at Gateway. Larson has four straight top-10 finishes, three of which are top-5 finishes. And Kyle Busch has the best streak in NASCAR with six-straight top 10s.
Cole Custer has two wins this season on the Xfinity Series, both on non-ovals as he won at Portland International Raceway.
AM Racing No. 25 Xfinity driver Brett Moffitt had his best finish of the season, placing 4th. It’s the second-best finish of his career behind a 2nd-place finish at Daytona in 2021.
Exactly halfway through the Cup Series season and with just eight races remaining in the regular season, Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 driver Martin Truex Jr. currently leads the point standings by nine points over Hendrick No. 24 driver William Byron.
Rookie JGR driver Ty Gibbs would take the 16th and final spot in the driver playoffs if the season ended today, edging out Trackhouse No. 99 driver Daniel Suárez by six points. Gibbs earned his way into the playoff field at Chicago by tying his best finish of the season placing 9th in a race for a fourth time this season.
Street Race Thoughts:
Seeing a brand new driver to the sport win at a track that broke the walls of what NASCAR was imagined to be was nothing short of a spectacle. The history that was made created one of that ever-rare ‘where were you when…” moments. The combination of innovation for the sport, new eyes on the product and the delivery when compared to initial expectations, it may be the single most impressive sporting event of my lifetime. NASCAR decided to try something really uncomfortable and brand new for the sport and it worked amazingly.
With 4.632 million viewers, NBC had its most-watched NASCAR race since the 2017 Homestead-Miami Championship race according to Adam Stern of the Sports Business Journal. NBC only carries the back half of the Cup Series season so it does not collect on Daytona 500 viewership which is annually NASCAR’s most-watched race.
Both covering the sport and watching as a fan, I could not get enough and all it has left me is wanting more. While NASCAR has a solid collection of road courses that it has on the schedule or has run at historically, adding more diversity to the schedule and visiting more big market cities could be huge for the sport.
NASCAR will always be an oval-racing series at its core and cars running side-by-side lap after lap at high speeds creates the best entertainment that stock car racing has to offer. However, I’d like to see three to four street races on the schedule in the near future, rotating different cities in and out of the schedule every few years.
Racing past iconic landmarks with solid competition in front of markets that otherwise are disinterested in the sport could be the opportunity for growth that NASCAR needs to catch the wave of popularity that F1 has gained in the past few years with the help of its Netflix show.
And by no means is that saying NASCAR needs to become something that it is not and turn into a stock car series with an IndyCar schedule. Just that making street races a regular thing could be big for getting into markets that don’t have typical NASCAR tracks in the area.
Off the top of my head San Diego, New York, Seattle and Denver would all play really cool settings for future races. The Long Beach Grand Prix course in Los Angeles is already geared for racing. It will be interesting to see how NASCAR builds off of the success that it had in its inaugural run at street racing.
Shane Van Gisbergen thoughts:
It was phenomenal seeing a new driver take on the Cup Series and put on a show the way Van Gisbergen did, especially in a new event for NASCAR. Australian Supercars run on street courses in cities like Adelaide and Newcastle and are similar to Cup cars in terms of design. That allows an easier adjustment for racers making the move over when compared to open-wheel drivers who give the Cup Series a run.
After the race, SVG said that he has one more year on his deal in Supercars but that he would like to try and run in NASCAR in 2025.
If Trackhouse Racing is already getting international talent interested in bringing their talents to NASCAR full-time that is a huge win for the future. The higher the talent level the sport boasts, the more entertaining on-track action can be. Seeing Van Gisbergen take on the field across a whole season would be an incredible test against NASCAR’s talent.
The only question now for Trackhouse is who and where next?
Xfinity Race Stoppage Thoughts:
NASCAR did the best it could with the circumstances between the city, mother nature and the lack of track lighting creating a curfew. While it’s disappointing to not get a full race in, seeing the Xfinity cars set the stage for the Cup race was really neat and Custer drove his car to an impressive win.
Though with the race being called before halfway, it would have been nice to see NASCAR amend the points awarded to partial credit for the shortened run, but otherwise, there was not much it could do and it didn’t put a huge damper on the weekend overall.
Next Weekend:
The NASCAR Cup Series keeps Xfinity in tow as the two competitions head back to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the second race weekend of the season, Though, without the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series this time. Atlanta is a 1.54-mile oval that was recently repaved and runs like a mini-superspeedway. It will be a nice taste of the fast-paced oval action NASCAR can offer while it rides the viewership wave coming off of Chicago.
Trucks will be at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with the ARCA Menard’s National Series for a road course weekend coming off the heels of IndyCar running the track this past weekend. It’s the second road course of two that the Truck Series runs this season and the lone ARCA road course, so it will be exciting to see the lesser-developed drivers take their crack at some right turns.
Weekend Schedule:
As of Monday, July 3. Times Eastern*
Friday:
1:45 p.m. ARCA Practice and Qualifying
4:00 p.m. Craftsman Truck Series Practice and Qualifying -FS1
6:00 p.m. ARCA Zinsser SmartCoat 150 -FS1
Saturday:
1:30 p.m. Craftsman Truck Series O’Reilly Auto Parts 150 -FS1
4:05 p.m. Xfinity Series Qualifying (No practice) -USA
5:35 p.m. NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying (No practice) -USA
8:00 p.m. Xfinity Series Alsco Uniforms 250 -USA
Sunday:
7:00 p.m. NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 available at Walmart