Last weekend, Alex Bowman was crowned the winner of NASCAR’s second annual Chicago street course race after the event concluded before reaching the final lap.
The reason behind the race finishing early, though, was not because cars couldn’t make it on track — at least not entirely. The race ended due to the time limit being reached before the planned 75-lap race could be concluded.
As a staff report from NASCAR detailed, the race was delayed for almost two hours due to wet weather in the area. At the time the race began, drivers had the option to go with slick or wet-weather tires, and that’s a column topic for another day. In fact, it would more than likely have been this week’s educational expedition if not for the race finishing by time instead.
It’s incredibly important to note that a time limit is not the usual NASCAR way, so to speak. However, with the mounting pressure on the Chicago Street Race event itself, as discussed last week, the city of Chicago tightened its grip on the race, much to the chagrin of some fans.
The first entirely valid point to discuss is the matter of stage breaks during a timed event, such as @joshlmalone mentioned on X, formerly Twitter. If NASCAR knows it’s against the clock, why have stage breaks at all and eat up valuable portions of that time?
The race was always going to be cutting it close on the clock, even if it went the full distance. Allowing the cars ample opportunity for more time on the track — weather permitting — seemed like the logical move here, but it’s not what NASCAR was going to run with. To top it all off, stage breaks at road courses were supposed to be a thing of the past, but that changed earlier in the year, as most fans will remember.
Magnedeth (certifiably cool username) made a great point, too. If the race was always against the clock, would it not be smarter on NASCAR’s part to start the race as early in the day as possible? Yes, the NTT IndyCar Series ran earlier in the day, but if the point is to draw eyes to the sport, it sounds like a wiser decision to ensure a full race that would end after IndyCar than a half-cooked one that only might have even under perfect conditions.
Concerts were had throughout the day as well and of course drew some fans to the race. However, is NASCAR in the racing business or the entertainment business? The answer to that question is inevitably both, as NASCAR is of course going to try and turn a profit, but post-race concerts have long been used at a successful level.
A race that started at 12:30 local time would have given fans ample time to get psyched up for a Keith Urban show, even if it was in the rain. After all, some of the best concerts ever have been in the midst of some dodgy weather (see Prince’s 2007 Super Bowl halftime show, for reference).
With the success of the previous day’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race, Sunday’s race was poised to make the first full-weekend impression in the short tenure of the Chicago street course. That isn’t what happened, though.
Instead, NASCAR let one of the most important events of the season and one of the biggest eye-catching weekends on the schedule for potential new fans go off without any sort of bang. Poor planning on the front end met with as little city cooperation as possible to concoct a nasty cocktail. Instead of that bang, NASCAR let the weekend go off, for potentially the last time, with something like the sound of rain on Sunday evening.
What is the best thing to do when one hears that sound on that holy day? Take a nap. Which is exactly what Chicago did for many a potential new fan of the sport.
Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s OnSI Network, a contributor for TopSpeed.com, an AP Wire reporter, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host and master's student at Mississippi State University. Soon, Tanner will be pursuing a PhD. in Mass Media Studies. Tanner began working with Frontstretch as an Xfinity Series columnist in 2022.
By my count if the race started on time at 3:30 instead of 4:05 or 10, Seems to get pretty close to being done with the full race with everything else being the same. Also would have had the first opportunity to actually race the street course in the dry. Watching the pre race it was almost like NASCAR was purposefully waiting for the weather to get closer. STUPID.