What Happened?
Another rain-affected NASCAR Cup Series race at the Chicago street course came to a close with Alex Bowman in victory lane. Bowman triumphed on wet-weather tires over Tyler Reddick and Ty Gibbs, finishing second and third on slicks.
With the victory, Bowman snapped an 80-race winless streak, dating back to his Las Vegas triumph in the spring of 2022.
What Really Happened?
Unfortunately, Mother Nature rained on the Chicago party once again. The race — and track — that has produced an incredible atmosphere and awesome action in its short lifespan can’t seem to catch a break from the weather.
The Chicago street course, or something like it at least, absolutely deserves another race next season. I’ll do one better: It needs a more permanent place on future schedules.
In both the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series, the street circuit has put on a show, even with limited action.
Additionally, the tire strategy added yet another fascinating element of team strategy and driver skill to the afternoon and evening. However, NASCAR may have missed another opportunity to plot a data point in this wet weather experiment.
We’ve seen NASCAR push the limit with wet-weather tires a few times before, first in the Xfinity Series at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 2016 and again at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in 2020. The Cup Series experiment went pretty far at the Circuit of the Americas in 2021 until we learned about visibility issues due to spray.
In that moment, the “rain” tires changed to “wet-weather” tires, and NASCAR has been hesitant to push too far in wet conditions.
This weekend, however, NASCAR faced a bind. Constrained by a late start and an inability to delay to Monday, the race had to run in some way, shape or form. Oh, and it HAD to get past halfway. Another redo of last year’s Xfinity Chicago experience could not happen to the Cup Series.
It looked like the teams and drivers would push as far as they could into the rain until the favorite got taken out. A questionable double-file restart remained fairly tame for the first corner. Bowman spun Bubba Wallace, but no yellow allowed the field to get spread out. But then, Chase Briscoe slid into the turn 6 tires and nipped Shane van Gisbergen, and the yellow immediately flew.
It’s a tough line to walk. Safety absolutely should be a priority. At the same time, how are the drivers supposed to grow their wet-weather racing skills if they don’t get any true opportunities to race in the wet?
On one hand, it makes sense that NASCAR doesn’t want to throw a caution every half-lap, and they don’t want half of the teams upset after crashing on a wet track. However, when the field went back to racing, NASCAR wound up letting a lot of crashes, spins, and incidents go anyway because the window for green-flag racing was rapidly closing, and that added yet another intriguing element to the race.
Watching the teams and drivers manage wets versus slicks brought so much fun, nervous energy to the finish that only NASCAR can provide.
These wet-weather tires have so much potential, and they have already made such a positive impact in this sport. Sitting on pit road, not even making pace laps brought a lot of disappointment and frustration yet again.
However, another fun finish on an incredible track certainly made up for it.
Who Stood Out?
Not only did Bowman win the race, he had an impressive weekend. The No. 48 showed speed all weekend. His team made a great strategy call, and he had to pass another road course ringer, Joey Hand, to win. Bowman is a darn good road racer, he just hadn’t had the trophies before this weekend to show for it.
Hand also stood out. Running a similar strategy, Hand won stage two, led eight laps and held on at the end to finish fourth on wets in the RFK Racing No. 60 machine.
Further back, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. earned another top 10 in seventh. Stenhouse has had a solid summer streak, with three top-10 finishes in the last four races.
Did Kyle Busch finally break his streak of bad luck? Busch finished ninth, his first top-10 finish in the last seven races.
Who Fell Flat?
Quite possibly the three top favorites for the Chicago Street Race all finished in the last three positions. SVG did not get taken out of his own doing. An unfortunate tap from an out-of-control Briscoe shot van Gisbergen just past the tires and into the concrete, relegating the defending race winner to dead last.
Surprisingly, with the Kiwi out, Kyle Larson did not take advantage. Instead, he made yet another mistake, sliding nose-deep into the tire barriers and ending his race. Larson kindly avoided Gibbs, but now he falls behind teammate Chase Elliott in the regular season points battle.
Another driver who made a shocking mistake was AJ Allmendinger. The road ringer should have had a leg up on his competition in the rain, and he made steady progress to the front until a mistake of his own in turn 12 stuck him in 38th place.
Better Than Last Time?
When the cars are on track, the Chicago street course experiment is an overwhelming success. I’m not sure how much of that is because of the rain both years, but the on-track product has been enough to overcome any rainy blues or frustrations.
As much action as we saw this year, the race itself couldn’t hold a candle to the electrifying drive of van Gisbergen to the front to do the unthinkable and win in his first-ever NASCAR start.
This track has been so good so far. While we, the fans may not be deserving of such greatness, the streets of Chicago need to see a race weekend fulfilled to its advertised distance.
Paint Scheme of the Race
The best-looking car nearly won the race. Sporting the original image of Michael Jordan jumping, legs split, reaching the ball up for a dunk, Reddick’s No. 45 machine had the cleanest paint scheme of the race.
This scheme debuted as a show car last season, but seeing it on the track was so much better.
What’s Next?
Surprise, but there’s more weather in the weekend forecast when the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Pocono Raceway. Fingers crossed, the Great American Getaway 400 Presented by VisitPA.com is scheduled for Sunday, July 14 at 2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!