Why here?
Of all the places NASCAR could have chosen for its first street race, why Chicago? Why pick a city that thinks a restrictor plate has something to do with dieting? Why not reward Charlotte, North Carolina, or somewhere else where racing is in the blood? Where success is guaranteed?
The idea, of course, is to grow NASCAR in Chicago. That’s a huge challenge, which is a polite way of saying that someone out there is dreaming the impossible dream. This is a Bears town, a Cubs town, a Bulls town and, this week, most definitely a Blackhawks town, thanks to the team’s selection of wunderkind Connor Bedard with the first overall pick in Wednesday night’s NHL draft.
We’re kind of busy around here and will be for the foreseeable future.
We’re not the people or the city for this. I don’t mean that as a shot at the residents who love stock car racing and by some geographical misfortune, ended up here. But what did NASCAR officials see in us that made them think: “Chicago! Of course! Why didn’t we think of this 50 years ago!” It couldn’t have been the tired looks of Chicagoans who have wasted years of their lives sitting in traffic during rush hour. The last thing these people want to see in their spare time is a car.
This is cultural, more than anything. Maybe it’s a blue state/red state thing. But Chicagoans were not begging for NASCAR before former mayor Lori Lightfoot made a deal with the organization. Two idiots weaving in and out of traffic on the Stevenson Expressway constitutes our experience with racing. Joliet had a NASCAR race but lost it three years ago. There are fans here. There are fans everywhere. But it doesn’t follow that planting a seed in 2023 means a revolution 20 years from now. It means that a niche sport in Chicago probably will remain that.
Some of the people who love NASCAR are the same people who watch the partisan TV channels obsessed with the gun problem in Chicago. And they’re going to show up in their RVs on Sunday and enjoy the race? Will there be a staging area where they can circle the wagons to fend off the career criminals?
The whole thing just seems odd and cumbersome and ill-fitting, like two-by-four trying to find a home in a round hole.
NASCAR isn’t alone in trying to spread its brand. The Cubs and Cardinals played a two-game series in London recently because … because … because I don’t know why. England isn’t crying out for baseball, anymore than it’s crying out for corn dogs. But Major League Baseball wants to establish a beachhead, in the hope, one presumes, of putting a team there someday. Sounds like a fool’s errand.
MLB is taking its cue from the NFL, which has played at least one regular-season game in London since 2007. No matter what commissioner Roger Goodell wants you to believe, football isn’t taking off there. Some things (soccer) are ingrained there, and some (football) aren’t. If you’re ever in London during the week of an NFL game, pick up a newspaper. You’ll have to flip through page after page of soccer and cricket coverage before you get to the one story about football. The proof of London’s tepid interest isn’t in a stadium filled with American expatriates, American vacationers and whatever die-hard English NFL fans make it to the game. It’s in the yawns of the millions of Brits who have never given American football a first thought, let alone a second one.
NASCAR clearly wants a piece of what Formula One has. F1’s popularity has soared in the United States, thanks partly to the Netflix docuseries “Formula One: Drive to Survive,’’ a behind-the-scenes look at the racers and the races. F1 has gotten its hooks in that part of the U.S. market that likes cool and cosmopolitan. It might have been a better fit for Chicago.
F1 also has lots of experience setting up and taking down a city race course. NASCAR doesn’t. The hassles that Sunday’s race has heaped on Chicago for weeks has not made it many friends. The road closures and accompanying traffic problems seem to have turned off a good number of downtown residents, who, if they were NASCAR fans before, have ripped the Dale Earnhardt No. 3 stickers off their Audis.
Not to worry, folks. Only two more years left on that contract with NASCAR.
